Sha Tin Racecourse

I went to Hong Kong on Saturday 10/1/11 during China’s National Day, which basically means everyone gets a week off and many Chinese go home to see their families if their families live elsewhere. The National Day of the PRC is celebrated every year on October 1^st. It is a public holiday in the PRC to celebrate their National Day. The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

This was my first trip to Hong Kong. I would be staying one night with my main goal of going to the Sha Tin Racecourse which is located in the town of Sha Tin. I left Saturday morning and would come back to my apartment Sunday evening. The races started around 1pm and end around 6pm. After the races, I would head to the Central area of Hong Kong which is pretty much the downtown district.

The town of Sha Tin is an area around the Shing Mun River in the New Territories of HK. 

 

Sha Tin Racecourse is located directly on the rail line and the station is called ‘Racecourse’ and is only open on race days. Sha Tin is one of two racecourses for horse racing in HK. Happy Valley is the other which I’ll discuss in another post. Sha Tin is usually the day-time track and Happy Valley the night-time track. Sha Tin Racecourse is fairly young being built in 1978 and is the larger of the two. Sha Tin has the world’s first retractable paddock roof over the parade ring (pretty cool) and the world’s longest Diamond Vision television screen.

I was really looking forward to going to Sha Tin Racecourse as from what I could gather from the web, it looked great. Boy, the place didn’t disappoint. There are so many different areas at the track, whether it be member or non-member areas. And there are so many different areas within the members’ area that it becomes very confusing of where you can and can’t go. I decided to buy a $100 HKD tourist badge day pass which let me go to some of the member areas. When I was buying the pass, I noticed a worker looking me over. After probably seeing me puzzled, she mentioned to me that she was looking at the length of my shorts. I guess the length matters regarding the members’ area, but she said I was fine. Good thing, it didn’t dawn on me to where pants for this trip. $100 was a bit steep, but I thought what the hell? Though I wouldn’t buy it again. I don’t think it was worth that much money. I think regular admission was like $10 HKD. 

 

Sha Tin is huge and I hope the pics show this. Again, multiple areas as well as multiple levels/floors. The place was packed. I’m not sure if it’s always packed (as I came during National Week when most people had off) but I bet that it is. I love horse racing and so do the people of Hong Kong. I felt like it was stepping back in time. Like going back to the ‘30s in the U.S. when horse racing and boxing were huge and American football was in its infancy. Horse racing is their National sport, so I felt right at home here and I loved it. It was so crowded, especially as the day wore on. But that was fine with me. I like all the excitement. 

 

As you can see from one of the pics, I ate a simple lunch here consisting of just rice and tofu. When you ordered a meal, you got like $5 off a beer so I had one of those too. The meal was nothing special. Actually, I was disappointed in the food selection here. I just didn’t find much that interested my vegetarian palate. Now there were other restaurants in places where I had no admittance that may have been better but I’m not sure. Also disappointing were the gift shops. They really didn’t have anything that interested me and the selections were small.

The paddock area was so cool. It has the retractable roof with permanent seating. Very nice. Great views. Nice high-def video boards. 

They run clock-wise in Hong Kong.  I've never been to a track that runs that way.  That took me a little bit to get used to.

 

The views of the track from the grandstand are gorgeous. The whole place is very modern and very clean. The workers are all very much gussied up and couldn’t be nicer. Even the betting window clerks are dressed really nice and are extremely courteous, calling me sir, etc. This was so different from U.S. tracks where most workers give you the impression you’re bothering them. Also, most tracks in the States are dumps, especially Albuquerque’s, where I had been living for the past 5 plus years. Talk about a dump. You can’t even compare the two. Betting was hard as their terminology, bet types, and slips are different from what I’m used to back in the States. Also, the minimum dollar amounts for certain types of bets were different which complicated matters so I just stayed with basic bets and really didn’t try exotics. I couldn’t obtain an English race form which certainly hindered my handicapping ability and enjoyment. But I broke even I believe, which was good, considering the circumstances. But I didn’t go to try to make money. I went to have fun and have a few beers, which I certainly did.

I left the racecourse around 6:30 I think and took the train a stop to my hotel and checked in. I stayed at the Regal Riverside Hotel in Sha Tin. The hotel was very nice as was the area. The hotel is located right across the river. I checked in and then went to the downtown area that night by taking the subway again. Hong Kong is very expensive. People do not come here to save money. I ate dinner at the Hard Rock Café which was incredibly expensive and certainly not worth the price but I had fun. I talked with a kid who spoke good English, he was from Singapore. After being a little tipsy, I went back to the hotel for the night.