Champions Day: A First Hand Experience of Hong Kong Racing

It was a great first hand experience for a solo traveller, and horse racing international fan to Hong Kong for Champions Day, with record breaking numbers, it was great to see horse racing in another country.

Hong Kong is a country where east meets the west and old meets the new. The country itself that is predominately English speaking due to the colonisation of the United Kingdom obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898, with Japan occupying the country during World War II, the rightful ownership was handed back to China in 1997. The country still speaks native dialect of Cantonese.

The Hong Kong racing seen has grown quite rapidly within the last 30 years making the Hong Kong Jockey Club as one of the largest racing organisations in the world. With Happy Valley Racecourse which is located on Hong Kong Island was built in 1845 and revitalized in the mid 90s. Sha Tin is the newer racecourse built in 1978 to cater for larger international races and larger crowds.

It's quite easy to get around Hong Kong, from the airport to the islands and to the racecourse, bus, rail or private transport.

They also welcome people from around the world to come and watch their races and they honour this by free general admission entry by showing your international ID. Otherwise it's only $10HKD if you have an Octopus card which is an equivalent to an Opal or Myki card (transport card in Australia).

I even received a free cute keychain for Champions Day.

Food was affordable, a bottle of water and a meal for under $10.

We love how they're so passionate about the plush toys and gadgets at the gift shop, we also bought a plush toy horse for souvenir sake, take your pick of your favourite horse.

The betting areas were pretty insane, punters galore, a country which comes third in the highest betting turnover in the world to the USA and Japan. They even have the odds on the screen on the turf, for your convenience. You can thank World Pool Racing for that for it's innovation and forward thinking to future betting.

World Pool Racing an innovation in international commingling. What is commingling someone may ask, it is the process where one totalisator organisation combines its wagering pool with another.

In lasts year's Asian Racing Conference there was support for a unified "tote". Here HKJC promotes prestigious races available to punters worldwide. Sounds visionary, but to us it seems to make sense for a unified system and we're all for innovation.

A lot of Australians rave on about betting on Hong Kong races, I know a few punters who even gave me a back end knowledge of horses, before I even entered the foot of the racetrack. It was just remembering a whole new set of horses, jockey and trainers for the day, on top of all the other ones from Australia.

The HKJC is not just all about the races, they're also about aftercare of racehorses. They have a racehorse aftercare programme called "Restart", dedicated to supporting aftercare for retired racehorses with some going to riding schools, leasing for leisure or sport, or retrained to go into other avenues such as apprentice jockey schools.

We travelled to Hong Kong this weekend because we were interested in seeing Hong Kong horse racing first hand. The hype to see Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott's horse Royal Patronage race, as well as the beloved Mr Brightside by the Hayes brothers.

We also knew about Zac Purton, who is seen as an absolute legend for his many wins in Hong Kong, something the younger jockeys in Australia aspire to. There is no limitation to aspiring to win, and he is a testament to that.

We even follow his amazing wife Nicole who is seen as your iconic glamour girl for representing women who love to attend horse racing events and her strong support of Zac, she showcases racing very well in Hong Kong.

We were excited to see Craig Williams and Damian Lane in Hong Kong, when we were accustomed to see them on home turf, it's a nice feeling to see Aussies represent overseas.

Whilst we saw Romantic Warrior last month in Dubai, unfortunately he was rested for this race but we were able to see the legends such as Ka Ying Rising, Voyage Bubble and Red Lion first hand.

With social media it's made it so accessible for us to identify the who of who in racing, especially as the next gen, a millennial who came from a generation that started My Space and Facebook and MIRC. We've kept social media going and if it wasn't for our generation, the horse racing industry wouldn't survive without our passion for horses and horse racing. Love it or Hate it. Social media is here to stay.

That betting app you use, the computer you use to read the form, the stories we share about horses and the who's who in the zoo, technology won't leave us.

While I wouldn't consider this weekend a holiday for me, I enjoyed the experience as a racegoer just like all the Hong Kong fans. Would I come back? Absolutely! Hong Kong has a lot to offer, especially for the young ones like us, with a crazy nightlife, pub and bar scenes every night, the shopping for the girls and the exchange rate is reasonable.

It's only a 9.5 hour flight time from the east coast of Australia and you meet the most amazing people, and of course get to see amazing horses racing from around the world.