With my member's badge, I had free run of the place ― the air-conditioned loge, the paddock, the winner's circle.
The jockeys are celebrities and even casual bettors know their "place percentages." Some owners are referred to by first name only. There are two tracks and an off-track betting parlor every few blocks. Every horse cough and sniffle is chronicled in the South China Morning Post. "Ignore Razor Quest's latest run," a tipster advises. "Had mucus in trachea." Welcome to America in 1930. Horse racing is Hong Kong's favorite sport, and nothing comes close.
The races are televised live and endlessly repeated and analyzed.
By showing my passport and paying a small fee, I was admitted to the member's loge at Happy Valley Racecourse. With the help of the crisply professional attendants of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (and some of the degenerate gamblers I found there) I learned about "bounce theory," how to read the Chinese racing form, fill out betting slips, and leaned in to hear salacious gossip about Jenny Chapman, the race analyst who roams the paddock area and radios her picks to be broadcast to an expectant betting public.
The horses run clockwise because, I dunno ... Hong Kong.
Between Leighton Hill and the Muslim cemetery is a sight you will see only in Hong Kong ― an 0.86-mile grass course nestled among skyscrapers. It is as cool as it sounds, and when the sun goes down, the setting becomes even more striking. In the New Territories to the north, maybe a 40-minute subway ride away, is the Ta Shin track, and it is supposed to be just as fun. (Postscript: Razor's Quest finished sixth in his next outing.)
NEXT: Some potentially unpopular parting observations about this semiautonomous territory. But first I must catch a flight.
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