Hong Kong racing hits record high for tourists in flying start to Year of Horse
More than 92,000 fans, including at least 20,000 tourists, make the trip for the first meeting of the Lunar New Year
Hong Kong racing welcomed in Lunar New Year with the biggest attendance since 2019, booming visitor numbers and officials hailing “a fantastic start” to the Year of the Horse.
A bumper crowd of more than 92,000 descended on Sha Tin Racecourse on Thursday, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club said almost 100,000 spectators had watched the day’s action across the city’s two venues.
And with the city welcoming 1 million tourist arrivals from the mainland and elsewhere for the holiday, some 20,395 of those reportedly made the trip to Sha Tin, a figure Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, the club’s CEO, called “an absolute record”.
Those attendance figures were reflected in the day’s turnover of HK$1.84 billion, with punters hoping some of the good fortune enjoyed by trainer Jimmy Ting Koon-ho in the first race would rub off on them.
“We think the atmosphere was fantastic,” Engelbrecht-Bresges said. “We had to manage and limit the crowd because we don’t want to exceed a certain number. It’s not about records, it’s about safety but I would say we could not have had a better start to the Year of the Horse.”
Ting would certainly agree. Jockey Richard Kingscote guided his four-year-old gelding Come Fast Fay Fay to victory while fans were still flooding through the gates.