Wednesday card at Happy Valley canceled due to Hong Kong protests

The Hong Kong Jockey Club canceled its Wednesday night racing program at Happy Valley because of the widespread protests and chaos that have increasingly engulfed the special administrative region of China.

This was the first race card to be canceled specifically due to pro-democracy demonstrations that began escalating late this summer and have grown increasingly violent and widespread in recent weeks. A Happy Valley card earlier in the racing season was canceled because a pro-China lawmaker’s horse was scheduled to race, and officials feared protests tied to the horse’s participation.

A release from the HKJC on Wednesday said the club “has conducted a thorough risk assessment of the race meeting tonight and concluded that the latest social unrest and public transportation situation throughout the territory do not support our employees and racegoers arriving and particularly departing from the racecourse smoothly and safely.”

Happy Valley, which races nearly every Wednesday night during the season, is in the heart of Hong Kong’s city center. Horses racing there are shipped on race-day from stables at Sha Tin Racecourse, which mainly hosts races cards on Sunday afternoons. While Happy Valley sits right in the middle of an urban center, ringed by busy commercial thoroughfares and apartment buildings, Sha Tin, situated in Sha Tin City in Hong Kong’s New Territories, is bounded on one side by a river, on another by an expressway, and is located in a far more spacious and controllable part of the region.

Still, Sha Tin Racecourse is literally right down a hill from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where student protesters and Hong Kong police engaged in pitched battles the last two days. The HKJC on Tuesday released a statement dispelling a rumor that the racecourse was being used as a police staging area for the trouble at the university.

Hong Kong’s most important race day of the season, the four Group 1 races comprising the Hong Kong International Races, is scheduled for Dec. 8. The HKIR has been expected to draw several prominent Japanese shippers, including star 4-year-old filly Almond Eye.