THE Macau Jockey Club (MJC) have abandoned the arduous task of establishing Thursday night race meetings on the Taipa calendar.
A handful of Thursday night meetings have been held with totalisator figures well under $10 million on several occasions. Attendances at wintry Taipa were sometimes as bleak as the weather.
The MJC announced yesterday that the remaining four Thursday meetings had been re-scheduled for Saturday night meetings in April and May.
Interestingly, the new Saturday dates all clash with race meetings in Hong Kong - and two of them directly.
The MJC have rescheduled their April 28 meeting to the following Saturday night and that will clash with one of the Jockey Club's rare Sha Tin Saturday night meetings.
A sizeable source of their totalisator turnover comes via Hong Kong Telebet accounts and also Hong Kong patrons making the trek to Taipa. Although Macau is generally full on a Saturday night, it is with casino gamblers - not racing fans.