Goodbye to Prawn a big yawn, says Allan
While the farewell ceremony of Fairy King Prawn last Sunday might have attracted very widespread media attention, it was not universally regarded as a properly completed job.
Hong Kong and quite a few Chinese mainland media outlets covered the fact of Fairy King Prawn's retirement from racing and the official goodbye. We understand that there was video footage of the Sha Tin farewell and some of Fairy King Prawn's big race wins played on CCTV and Phoenix, and that has to be regarded as very encouraging for spreading the word on Hong Kong racing.
Even the Xinhua and China News agencies reported Fairy King Prawn's retirement and, in terms of getting the message out there, the club has probably shown excellent reach.
However, one notable who felt there was a disappointing lack of presentation involved in the Jockey Club's 'send-off' was trainer Ivan Allan. He felt the on-course activities 'lacked pizzazz' and that, of the Jockey Club's various department directors, he was disappointed to see that only the executive director of racing, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, was in attendance for the big moment.
'There wasn't even a musical tribute of any kind to get the crowd involved and most people at Sha Tin would not have known it was even happening. I have seen farewells overseas when champions have gone out with the tail in the air but this one was just a big yawn,' Allan said.
'They had myself and the owner standing around doing nothing like we were lost souls and if the club's marketing people can't come up with something better than this, then I for one will not want to participate in the next farewell.'
Of course, Allan is the trainer of Hong Kong evergreen Indigenous, another idol due to bow out of racing himself this season as a 10-year-old.