Thousands enjoy Club's horse-themed events at Tuen Mun

2 May 2010

The Tuen Mun Open Day has become a major annual feature in Hong Kong's equestrian calendar, and this year's event offered more attractions than ever.  They included a horseback fun race, a vaulting demonstration (gymnastics on horseback) and live presentations by the Club's farriers and grooms, through which visitors were able to learn more about the daily lives of horses.

There were also guided tours to stables that have been newly built at the riding school, as well as to the feed room.  Modelled on those built by the Club for the equestrian events of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the new stables offer the horses an enhanced living environment and facilities, being equipped with automatic water drinking machines as well as higher ceilings and larger windows for good ventilation.  In a sand yard outside the stable block, the horses can enjoy their daily leisure walks and rolling. 

Members of the public were given the chance to make even closer contact with the horses by having their photos taken with the Club's Shetland ponies or joining children!|s pony riding sessions.  The ever-popular bouncing castle and various game booths also kept younger visitors well entertained.

For most people the day's highlight, though, was a series of mounted games on horseback in which instructors from Tuen Mun Public Riding School and trainees from the Club's Apprentice Jockeys' School joined forces to show their fun side.  A demonstration of vaulting, an exciting and increasingly popular sport in the US and Europe, also wowed the visitors.

Through staging equestrian-themed events and other community outreach programmes, the Club is committed to supporting the development of equestrian sport in Hong Kong as well as to meeting the public!|s growing interest in the sport. 

The Hong KongJockey Club

Founded in 1884, The Hong Kong Jockey Club has become one of Hong Kong's best known and respected organisations, providing the public with world-class sporting entertainment as well as being the city's major non-Government community benefactor, now donating more than HK$1 billion a year to charitable and community projects.  It has been a part of Hong Kong through good times and bad, sharing the city's growth and development with its people, and is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for future generations.