Happy Valley Racecourse

I walked to Happy Valley (HV) Racecourse.  It started drizzling as I was walking and it drizzled (off & on) throughout the night which was unfortunate.  Before I entered the gates, I went to the Hong Kong Racing Museum which is located at the Happy Valley Racecourse.  It was free and was pretty cool with many items viewable in English.  The coolest display was a skeleton of a thoroughbred in a racing pose.  They wouldn’t allow pics.  The museum is kind of located off the grandstand area and the building is located right near and above the track.  When you look out the museum’s windows, you can see the track right beneath you.  It’s pretty cool.  They also had a little gift shop and I bought a cool Hong Kong Jockey Club t-shirt.  After visiting the museum, I went to the gates.  I did not buy a tourist badge or anything like that as I did at Sha Tin.  I paid like $10 HKD and entered the public area.  The public area also houses a beer garden and tonight just happened to be an Oktoberfest promotion.  I did not view any of the member areas as I didn’t pay or have the proper ticket.

HV Racecourse is located in Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island.  HV, like Sha Tin, is surrounded by high rises though it was hard to see the surrounding area as it was nighttime.  Also, like Sha Tin, it was very crowded.  They take their horse racing very seriously here (it’s their number one pastime) and for that, I love it.  HV has been home to racing since 1846.  I read the city virtually grew up around the racecourse.  You can see from the one photo below what the racecourse and area looked like circa 1880.  Though not as big as Sha Tin, HV is still enormous.  I also read that HV is also more of a party atmosphere compared to Sha Tin.  I assume the beer garden as well as nighttime racing has something to do with that.

It was a fun night albeit the rain.  I didn’t win any money or anything.  There were a ton of expats here on this holiday night.  After the last race, I walked back to the subway and took it 1 stop to my hotel and just lounged out in my suite for the night and watched TV.  I should note that this was the day/night Steve Jobs of Apple died and all the TV channels, even in Hong Kong, were talking about him so that’s what I watched when I got back.  It’s pretty amazing I thought, he’s just one of a handful of people who truly touched the world.  His vision and his products revolutionized the world, even in Hong Kong/China.  That was evidenced by every network talking about him as well as being the front page story of the South China Morning Post the next morning.