Hong Kong: Ferraris/Mawing success, also Greg Cheyne

Taken from Hong Kong Jocky Club website of yesterday (and cropped quite a bit shorter):

Fans brave the New Year cold as Ferraris savours a Sweet victory

25/01/2012

The Hong Kong Jockey Club CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges thanked the “extremely loyal fans” after a passionate crowd of 78,136 braved the biting cold and rain to enjoy an enthralling afternoon of racing, the day’s highlight being a thrilling climax to the HKG1 Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Classic Mile.

...

Sweet Orange showed great heart and plenty of class as he rallied to triumph over favourite Fay Fay in a thrilling climax to the day’s feature contest, the HKG1 Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Classic Mile, the 1st Leg of the 2012 Four-Year-Old Series.

The War Front colt ended a G1 barren spell for trainer David Ferraris - stretching back to Vengeance Of Rain’s 2007 Dubai Sheema Classic win - as he rallied late off a muddling pace to score by a neck under Weichong Marwing.

“It feels tremendous because I’ve had a poor season, particularly so with all the close seconds I’ve had,” said Ferraris.

...

A delighted Marwing commented: “This has been great for David because he has had a bit of a lean spell. I’ve always believed in this horse and I think he is a horse that has a lot of improvement in him - he is certainly up to at least Group 1 level in Hong Kong.

...

Kung Hei Fat Choy is the customary salutation around Chinese New Year, so it was most apt that a horse of that name finally broke his maiden at Sha Tin’s Chinese New Year raceday.

Trained by Richard Gibson, Kung Hei Fat Choi was making his 15th Hong Kong start in the day’s fifth race, the 1800m Yue Yee Handicap, and the five-year-old gelding rewarded many of the 70,000-plus crowd that had supported him, with a determined and most topical first career victory under jockey Greg Cheyne.

Isn't Hong Kong also full of casinos? and yet the track can still get 78000 people on an ordinary day.

No casinos.You have to go by ferry to Macau to find a casino,just over an hour away.

Hong kong racing knows how to treat its customers

Best part about Hk are the size of the pools.Total pools on a race over $100 million Hong Kong which is about the same in rand terms.

Win and place pools are about R20 million each race and the total t/o on each race day is about R900 million.Horses are generally crap though,bar those at the top of the tree.

No bookies equals massive pools,poor customer service from the operators drives ppl to the bookies in SA

Lets look @ 1 example

I go to the tote,its a run down dump,the tellers dnt know their a.r.s.e from their elbow with regards to racing and treat punters as a nuisance to their eating ,and talking and having a laugh

I go to a bookie ,he got top class facilities,the bookies clerks are clued up about racing,we have some friendly banter,the bookie buys the boys a round of drinks,big screen tv s,fully aircon,some eye candy behind the counter,good bar n kitchen,we do our money non the less,but we had fun