The Sha Tin and Happy Valley racetracks have come through Super Typhoon Ragasa in good shape and officials are confident the Sha Tin turf will be ready to withstand this Sunday’s feature meeting.

Just days after two races were lost because of a waterlogged section of the track on the home turn, Sha Tin – like the rest of Hong Kong – was pummelled with wind and rain on Wednesday.

“There’s no issue with anything – horses no issues, stables no issues and training is open as normal this morning except for the trotting area in Penfold Park because we couldn’t check it in the dark last night,” Stephen Higgins, the Jockey Club’s head of race day operations, tracks and racing facilities, told the Post on Thursday morning.

“The turf track is ready to go and we’ve got trials at Happy Valley on Saturday and that’s all fine as well.”

The rail will be in the “C+3” position this Sunday, out 3 metres from last weekend, and Higgins is confident the section of the track near the 600m where two horses slipped last Sunday will hold up under anything near normal conditions.

“We don’t have any concerns at this stage. It just came down to the amount of rain at a consistent level – it was two days of constant rain,” he said.

“It was such a tiny little space that if we had a clear 45 minutes of dry weather you wouldn’t have found it again. It was literally just over one horse length and it was only because of the constant rain.

“The jockeys said if it was down the back straight or up the home straight they probably wouldn’t have noticed it – it was just where it was on the turn. Even by Monday morning we did some fairly stringent testing on the area and it had returned to normal.”

One of the races lost at Sha Tin last weekend, the Class Two 1,200m contest, will be run this Sunday, while there has been an extra race added to the Happy Valley programme on October 8.

There will also be a fixture added to the calendar to replace the Happy Valley meeting lost to the typhoon on Wednesday – likely on June 15 or July 15 – however it is believed the club is happy to wait until closer to the end of the typhoon season before locking anything in.

‘Relaxed’ Rising settles in

While the Group Three Celebration Cup (1,400m) is the highlight on home soil this weekend and Lucky Sweynesse targets Group One glory in Japan’s Sprinters Stakes (1,200m), it’s still Ka Ying Rising grabbing much of the attention ahead of next month’s The Everest (1,200m) in Sydney.

After arriving in Sydney on Monday, Ka Ying Rising worked at Canterbury on Thursday morning and trainer David Hayes was pleased with the report from his staff.

“He’s in great order. He’s settled in and enjoying having a pick of the grass outside the stable. He’s actually more relaxed in Australia than he is in Hong Kong, which is a good sign, I think,” he said.

Lucky Sweynesse is also in top order ahead of his tilt at a fifth Group One victory.

Preparing to race overseas for the first time on Sunday, the Manfred Man Ka-leung-trained sprinter galloped under race day jockey Derek Leung Ka-chun on Wednesday morning.

“He feels great. He always looks around like he does in Hong Kong, always curious with everything. It was his first time galloping here but everything went smoothly,” Leung told the Jockey Club.