Season ending bonanza for Club as Prebble scores winning treble
Bill Nader was crying 'show me the money' early in the evening at Happy Valley and the horse players of Hong Kong, somehow hearing him, piled it on until the counter stopped at an astonishing HK$912 million - the biggest Happy Valley evening meeting in more than six years.
The executive director of racing lost count of the number of times he clicked his Blackberry as the money rolled in, with the club averaging HK$114 million per race for this race meeting of last resort.
The 2007-08 racing season was due to finish on Tuesday at Sha Tin, but Tropical Storm Fengshen changed all that when last Wednesday night was washed out.
If that standard midweek fixture had been able to go ahead, on a rain-soaked track, a betting turnover of around HK$750 million would have been the result. So the abandonment and rescheduling ended up a bonanza all round.
Nader said the benchmark Happy Valley midweek meeting took place on May 8, 2002, when punters turned over HK$924 million, and nothing had gone close to that ever since.
'Because this meeting was a one-off, and with so many people having already left town, no-one was quite sure how this would go,' Nader said. 'But certainly, no-one was predicting a HK$900 million-plus meeting either. This has been huge.'
The final Happy Valley meeting of last season turned over HK$778.4 million, so last night's fixture gave the club a year-on-year increase of 17.2 per cent.
Out on the track, Brett Prebble won his sixth Jockey Challenge as heavily-bet odds-on favourite, courtesy of a winning treble that took him to his best season, 83 wins.
Prebble was faultless in landing Amazing Fortune for Francis Lui Kin-wai in the third and hot favourite Thunder Flash for his long-time friend and supporter, David Hall in the trophy race, the Cricket Club Valley Stakes.
But it was the middle pin of his three winners, Marvellous for Peter Ng Bik-kuen, in the Johnston Handicap (race four) which had the most meaning.
Ng went into the 78th and final meeting of the 2007-08 racing season in danger of missing the Jockey Club's minimum performance criteria.
The veteran horseman saddled three runners for a win with Marvellous and seconds with Active Valour and Dashing Champion to comfortably make it over the line. 'Naturally, I'm very pleased the night has gone so well,' Ng said.
'Actually, it was all settled when Active Valour ran second in race one, and everything after that has been a welcome bonus.'
David Ferraris continued his brilliant end-of-season flourish with another double, taking his sequence to five wins in the space of two meetings.
Ferraris teamed with Douglas Whyte for the fourth time in three days to win the sixth with Chater Silk ($27 favourite) and then scored the upset of the night with Crusader of Gold ($226) in the final event.
'With Chater Silk, he's appreciated the freshen up and the stronger pace tonight suited him down to the ground,' Ferraris said. 'As far as Crusader of Gold is concerned, it's a pleasant surprise because I really didn't think he could win. We've been having a lot of trouble with his feet but he was very free in his action tonight and you could see a long way out that he was travelling well and enjoying himself.'
Gary Ng Ting-keung and jockey Eddie Lai Wai-ming won the opening two races with 6-1 chance Master Ying and 10-1 shot King of Spades, giving Lai's long-priced Jockey Challenge backers an early thrill. The main event in the stewards' room was a careless riding suspension for Thomas Yeung Kai-tong on his final meeting as an apprentice.
Yeung was fined HK$30,000 in lieu of a suspension for his riding of Wei Hai Invincible at the winning post with a lap to go in race six.
