EXPECT plenty of celebrations and end-of-season parties when Happy Valley closes its curtain on the 2023/24 season, with another exciting nine-race programme starting at 11.35am today.
It has to be said that for many form book students and regular bettors at the city track the season can’t end quickly enough, with unfathomable results a regular feature this term.
Certainly, from Christmas onwards, there was a pronounced track bias favouring horses who raced up with the speed from the off, and then there was the unseasonable weather.
In living memory, never has so much rain, thunder and lightning hit the city during the racing season.
The words soft or yielding were a regular occurrence in describing surface conditions at the Valley from February onwards, with the majority of gallopers racing on ground totally alien to them.
Luckily the rain has abated over the past few weeks, and the present forecast suggests the track should ride quick, although one or two thunderstorms are still lurking menacingly.
The trainers’ title race continues to take up the most column inches in the local racing press, with Pierre Ng and Francis Lui still neck and neck with just two meetings left.
Ng may lead his former mentor by one win, but it is still anyone’s guess who will come out on top by Sunday evening.
Both trainers saddle eight runners at the Valley, and neither looks to have a proverbial penalty kick to help them along the way.
The Sweet Orange Handicap, over nine furlongs at 3.50pm, is a fiendishly difficult puzzle to solve, with all the dozen contenders having good chances on their best form.
It is interesting that trainer Pierre Ng sends his Brazilian import SUPREME AGILITY into battle again, after the talented four-year-old found inexperience costing him, when behind rivals Romantic Laos and Hameron, in a race won by Chain Of Gold, over the extended mile a fortnight ago.
This former Group One winner in Brazil finished strongly in the closing stages of that contest, after only getting his act together too late in the day, in what was just his third race in Hong Kong.
It is probable he will prove much better than his present handicap mark and the fact Zac Purton has plumped for him speaks volumes for his chance.
Earlier on the card, trainer Francis Lui may have already visited the winners’ circle with the lightly-raced HAROLD WIN, who makes his first appearance at the city track, in the Let Me Fight Handicap (1.05pm) over six furlongs.
The son of Swiss Ace has run okay in all three races to date, and should probably have won when seeing no daylight down the home straight at Sha Tin earlier this month.
In what looks an average contest, with only bottom-weight, but still 14-race maiden, Lucky Planet likely to offer most resistance, he should prove too classy for his rivals.
POINTERS
Harold Win 1.05pm Happy Valley
Supreme Agility 3.50pm Happy Valley