There was a certain amount of mirth stirred up among racing's hands-on personnel this week over John Moore's comments re: Rugby Sevens Sunday and the rebuttal by the Jockey Club chief executive, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges.
In particular, the errant observation by the reigning champion trainer the chief executive had not been at the races when he actually had been there, brought a few chuckles, but have no doubt, there were other theories floating about that race four was the trophy race so that officials could get from Sha Tin to Hong Kong Stadium in good time for the finals. Macau feature-race style.
But, chuckles aside, Moore's point that racing on Saturday would allow racing people to get to the Sevens finals day on Sunday is one that has been raised by club officials in past years as a defence of racing on the Saturday. It was only two years ago that executive director of racing Bill Nader made a public plea for regulatory changes that was heading in the same direction as Moore's call on Sunday to avoid races clashing with the Sevens.
The whole proposition, of Saturday or Sunday on Sevens weekend, was then and is now all about simulcasting and the rigid rules that govern the club's 25 simulcast dates per season.
The Jockey Club had only raced the same day as the Sevens once before 2010 - in 2008 - and didn't originally clash in 2010 but the race date was moved to Sevens day to accommodate simulcasts of the Dubai World Cup night as well as the Group One sprint in Japan where Sacred Kingdom was scheduled for a trip that ultimately didn't happen due to his colic.
When the club was granted permission to lift from the simulcast of 10 overseas races annually to 25 in 2009, the restriction of 10 individual races simulcast on race days remained, but the extra 15 simulcasting days were added, which could have multiple races but could not be on Hong Kong race dates. And the official start of race dates run from midnight to midnight, technically, just to make it worse.