ALL roads, trams and MTR trains will lead to one place, and one place only, tonight when the $1 billion revamped Happy Valley racetrack will be opened by Governor Chris Patten.
The Governor and the party he is entertaining in his private box will be among 50,000 flocking to the city venue which may be bigger, brighter and better than ever but has lost none of its intimacy.
They will see a new sandmesh surface with its sweeping bends able to accommodate larger, higher quality fields on grass - equitrack is out.
The redevelopment is the last grand scheme before the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club's chief executive Major-General Guy Watkins retires in March, after 10 years at the helm of the multi-billion dollar enterprise.
He revealed yesterday that the $1 billion investment will be recouped within only four years if the monies passed on to the Government in tax revenue are taken into account; six years if they are not.
'This will come from two extra racedays the new course will allow, the extra runners it will permit, and the greater interest it will generate from the better horses running at the track. It has been money very well spent,' General Watkins said.
'If we hadn't redeveloped the course we would have had to build a whole new complex somewhere in the New Territories as the old format of having one track of a much lower grade than the other [in Sha Tin] was no longer viable.' General Watkins said: 'The new Happy Valley racecourse also underlines - to the people of Hong Kong and to the outside racing world - the Jockey Club's commitment and confidence in the future of racing here past 1997.