New Hall of Fame

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I don't know how true this statement is. Looking at her list:

Vengeance of Rain won the Dubai Sheema.
Bullish Luck won the Yasuda Kinen in Japan.
Cape of Good Hope won the Golden Jubilee in England and a race in Australia.
Silent Witness won the Sprinters Stakes in Japan.

I'd even add Fairy King Prawn who won the Yasuda Kinen also. That's five horses who have won six internationl grade one races and of the six, three were in Japan, one in Australia, and one in Dubai. To most of the world, the traditional top racing is held in the United States, England, Ireland and France. The Hong Kong horses have only won a single grade one race in those countries that I have been able to find so far.

I'm not trying to knock Hong Kong racing at all. Just as I don't knock Japanese racing. But it's a process that takes a while to truly get to the top level of international racing and they just aren't there yet. That's not to say they can't get there, as Japan is definitely showing. But they aren't there yet.

Your interpretation of top class racing may need to change a bit. When is the last time a horse from the US won a race in Europe or Australia or HK or even Japan? Does that mean our races are no good too? When was the last really good horse from France came and win anything in the US? Considering the fact that they have won that many international races when the pool of horses in HK is around 500 i would say they are pretty good. When you add in the HK International race results, the numbers are even better.

[Scav]

HK owners have no reason to leave other then maybe ego or pride, otherwise, they are racing for the top squilla

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Your interpretation of top class racing may need to change a bit. When is the last time a horse from the US won a race in Europe or Australia or HK or even Japan? Does that mean our races are no good too? When was the last really good horse from France came and win anything in the US? Considering the fact that they have won that many international races when the pool of horses in HK is around 500 i would say they are pretty good. When you add in the HK International race results, the numbers are even better.

We specialize in dirt racing here which they don't run in the rest of the world, save for Dubai, where we have a pretty dominant record in the Dubai World Cup and do pretty well in the sprint race too. As far as grass racing, no, our horses for the most part don't compare with the best in the world. Just like HK, we get a good one here and there that is on par with the best but for the most part, we lag behind the top class international horses.

In regards to the question about a really good horse coming from France to win here, I don't break the European horses down by country. That would be like breaking down the American horses by state. The proximity of those countries to one another makes them completely interchangeable.

I believe that Hong Kong has some good horses. They have a top class racing structure and they are truly headed in the right direction towards becoming a world racing power. I don't think it's too inconcievable to see the day when Japan and Hong Kong are considered the top racing centers in the world. But as yet, they have very few horses that have left the country and made an international impact. It's only been a handful of horses in a handful of races and most of those were in places similar to HK in Japan and Australia.