In an effort to help raise the falling standards of English in the city, where, especially middle aged women in Hong Kong who don’t wish to look and say anything stupid, giggle nervously after everything they say. Some of them describe this as “laughter therapy”.
Always ahead of the curve, the HKJC scrap the paddock parades and start to show reruns of the old RTHK series called “One Minute English” hosted by Josiah Lau.
Just a weird HKJC photo.
Is it a Prince? Or a sheikh? Or Emirati singer Alira? Doesn’t matter. They’re all wheeled out for HKIR week and one of them donates US$500m for the betterment of Hong Kong.
Latest group of Hong Kong owners and their winning horse somewhere there.
The HKJC introduces its latest jockey, trainer, horse owner and CEO.
To showcase the affinity between animals and humans, and in yet another innovative marketing move, the HKJC introduces long distance races before every race meeting.
These races feature the HK$24 million dollar per annum man CEO of the HKJC, his Girl Friday Hanane Sabri, a former professional marathon runner handpicked by the CEO to be his Executive of Public Relations, Happy Wednesday and being all kinds of Tatler faux, plus the Douglas Whyte trained stayer Russian Emperor.
Curtain raisers to every race meeting, these are 3000 metre long races starting at high noon and often ending at 10pm.
To replace the absolute dire ‘live’ music bashed out at the Beer Garden at Happy Valley, these nights, Wini takes things into his own hands and creates The HKJC Nearly Fine Music Club.
Paddock parade cherry picker Jenny Chapman is resident DJ, form analyst The Lally Man bangs away on various tables and tablas, Nic Child and race caller Mark McNamara do the Moonwalk and raps, Director of Racing Andrew Harding tap dances as usual and various guests drop by with their groove things.
Particularly emotional is the duet between Wini and former HK based trainer David “Darth” Ferraris of “Feelings”.
There’s not a dry seat in the house and “Darth” starts to glow in the dark when he launches into a rather dark version of “Happy”.
The night closer is when the CEO rips off his rather tight shirt, gets down on his knees and sings that Wanchai covers band favourite “Don’t Stop Believing” that segues into a manly version of “Shallow”.
Nic: Wini, would you say that these have been challenging times for the Club?
Wini: As a world class horse racing club and, you know, always thinking of our beloved customers, we welcome challenges as we learn so much more about their wants and needs which help us to learn more about ourselves and if maybe we’re overpaid berks while, you know, working towards continuing to improve life for the betterment of Hong Kong.
Nic: Rather, old boy…Anything coming up that’s, well , somewhat more specific?
Wini: Fish tanks, Nicolas. There used to be a fabulous television show in Hong Kong many moons ago called Telefishion that was shown before programming began and which helped relax people. We have decided to show Telefishion after each race and before every race meeting to chill out customers.
Wini: To add entertainment value to Telefishion, I will perform my world famous Octopus Dance with the fishes in my brand new very expensive blue suit. This will be added value to our incredibly successful drowning pool- I mean, World Pool.
Let’s now dance like it was 1999, Nicolas!
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