The Jockey Club yesterday unveiled a number of upgrades and innovations to its information and digital experiences for the new racing season which will include for the first time virtual aerial race replays.
Among the changes in the digital world will be a Jockey Club WeChat platform, new smartphone apps and a revamp of the club's Racing Club website.
The Jockey Club also plans to add the Quartet betting pool to its foreign simulcasts, but the aerial virtual replays and the commentary added to trackwork replays were two innovations to catch the eye.
The virtual overhead replays will be similar to overhead views shown, for example, during Australia's Melbourne Cup carnival coverage on television but they will not be shot in real time from a dirigible in the sky over the racecourse.
Instead, the overhead views will be a graphical representation of the race constructed using the data collected by Trakus.
The Trakus system - which uses wireless tracking of horse saddlecloths by antennae situated around the track - was thoroughly used in testing last season but was not given a lot of prominence and its data on times or ground covered was not published for general consumption.
"There have been some issues with Trakus due to the very high density of radio signals in Hong Kong, and we see Trakus anyway as having more application in its graphical capabilities and as an enhancement of the racing experience," said the Jockey Club's customer and marketing guru, Richard Cheung Che-kit.
Various technical factors will prevent the overhead virtual representations from being shown during races or even soon after, but they will be added the following day to the suite of different race replay angles now available at the club's multimedia site.
The club will also add commentary, in both Chinese and English, to its highly-successful launch last season of daily trackwork videos to the club's website.
"We think all fans will appreciate the addition of commentary and especially when we think about our overseas customers and fans via commingling," added Cheung.
