HONG KONG - French jockey Christophe Soumillion sat smiling atop Mystic Force in the winner’s enclosure at Happy Valley Racetrack, a ribbon of light laid open like a wonderous “Neverland” amidst a ring of glittering skyscrapers.  From the eight tiers of glass grandstand above, he heard the cheers of Chinese break through the night like the rat-a-tat-tat of friendly gunfire saluting a hero.

“Hen bang (Well done),” shouted Justin Fao, a 24-year-old accountant for one of the local shipping companies.

“Tai hao la (What a treat)!” exclaimed Julia Wu, a woman in charge of a group of tourists in the “Stable Bend Terrace” restaurant. “Nin jiu shi guan jun (You’re the champion),” came the call of an old man dressed in ball cap and jockey goggles and a satin black Mandarin shirt.

A routinely raucous crowd
For many in the crowd of 18,000 — parties of friends savoring lavish buffets, young people out on a date, businessmen entertaining clients from abroad and hard-core handicappers pouring over the form from a seat in the grandstand — it was a routine Wednesday night at the races in Hong Kong.  But for Soumillion, the leading jockey in France, the evening brought another round of soothing acclaim.

Soullimon just finished in a tie with the world famous Yutake Take, a rock star of a rider from Tokyo who, earlier on the card, had ridden his 100^th winner on foreign soil to best ten other jockeys from nine other countries in a three-race riding competition. The International Jockeys’ Championship, as the rivalry was called, was a prelude to the weekend’s festivities at Sha-Tin, the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s newer and bigger racetrack and the scene of the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Cup races are to be held on Sunday.

Mystic Force was not the kind of horse an American would have expected to win a noteworthy event such as this, much less its inflated $95,000 U.S. purse. He was winless in six starts, a 4-year-old gelding by an obscure sire named Kaapstad, hardly a blood-horse that breeders were hurrying to secure for their mares.  The race was a contest over 1800 meters of cobbled turf — or more or less nine furlongs — and collectively the field was composed of horses which had triumphed just 29 times in 303 starts.

But the quality of the horses in competition does not seem to be a factor in the popularity of Hong Kong racing. Yes, the punters are pleased when champions are brought around, but it really does not get in the way of their enjoyment if all that is available for racing are the animals on hand in the high-rise horse dormitories at Sha-Tin. In Hong Kong, the EM-pha-sis is on the right SYL-la-ble — that is, on risking money and having fun.

World-class fields
Nevertheless, on Sunday, the fields will be filled with plenty of horses of world-class caliber.  They will be shooting for individual stakes as high as $2.3 million U.S. — $7.2 million U.S. in all — in a kind of all-turf Breeders’ Cup day bringing challengers from 10 countries.

Rakti, the winner of Ascot’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, will be favored in the 1 ¼-mile Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Cup. Ireland’s Phoenix Reach, winner of the Canadian International at Woodbine, will be fancied in the mile and a half Vase. England’s Antonius Pius, runner-up to Singletary in last month’s Breeders’ Cup Mile in Texas, takes on Australia’s Brian Boru and Japan’s Durandal, Asia’s highest rated horse, in the Mile.

The tough sprinter Battle Won is the lone horse to travel here from the States.  He is trained by the capable Chuck Simon, and his owner is Jay Manoosian, an Irvine, Calif., businessman.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” said Simon, about his unorthodox decision to ship Battle Won 20 hours by plane over the Polar Cap to take on the undefeated Silent Witness, 12 for 12 on the home grounds of Hong Kong. “Given a choice between Hollywood Park and Hong Kong, I chose Hong Kong.”

Simon said he does not expect Battle Won to win, but the enormity of the purse makes trying a worthwhile endeavor.  The Hong Kong Jockey Club is picking up Battle Won’s traveling expenses, a cost which Simon estimates to be $50,000 to $60,000 in all.

U.S. entrant's connections take a shot
One thing about Simon is clear — he does not regret his decision. “We can win more money here finishing fifth than we can by winning what’s available to us in America,” he said in justifying his decision. “If Battle Won  does well here, we’ll consider that new series for sprinters,” he added, waxing goofy about other high-stakes races to be run in England, Australia and Japan in 2005.

For a billion people the world over, the headlines in the sports sections of their Monday newspapers will be about the horse races in Hong Kong.  For the owners and trainers of four lucky horses, and the 100,000 fans in the stands at Sha Tin, it will be good to get the news ahead of them — even if it is spoken in Chinese. 

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