|
|
 |
|
#1
03-21-2007, 08:41 PM
|
||||
|
||||
Sabotage attempt in Hong Kong
Scary stuff.....
Thursday, March 22, 2007 Racegoers kept in the dark after deadly device found buried at 1,200m starting line before last night's race meeting ALAN AITKEN Jockeys at Happy Valley last night rode in the opening race unaware of the details of the bizarre sabotage plot at the racecourse foiled by Jockey Club staff yesterday. Routine checks of the starting points for the night's race meeting found the elaborate device buried beneath the starting point for the three 1,200m races on the card, a device apparently capable of doing harm to any or all of the 12 horses and riders in a race had it been used. The danger had passed with the removal of the device before racing, and last night's riders were told few details before heading out to ride from the 1,200m start in the opening race. After completing the race meeting, several riders were amazed to hear for the first time of the potentially dangerous situation which had been uncovered and some were disappointed that the Jockey Club had not been able to tell them more. The story of "the device" buried at the 1,200m start, known to few if any of the race-going public last night, overshadowed the events on the track, but the training honours went to Dennis Yip Chor-hong with a treble as Matiri King (Howard Cheng Yue-tin), Evergreen (Eddy Lai Wai-ming) and Bulldozer (Gerald Mosse) took out consecutive events in the second half of the meeting. Matiri King took out the feature event, the 2,200m EWO Challenge Trophy for his first Hong Kong victory and Yip said that opportunities for the five-year-old came rarely. "He is extremely one-paced and even 1,800m is too short for him," he said. "So there are not so many races where he is suited. He needs at least 2,000m to be effective and even then he is a hard ride - the jockey has to keep pushing at him all the way. "So full credit to Howard tonight - he's given him a perfect ride in the lead and he just outstayed them." Bulldozer, who also gave Mosse a double after the French ace had earlier scored aboard Unique Speed, has found his form again at his latest two outings after resenting blinkers in a number of previous starts this season. "With the blinkers on, he was charging forward in races and overracing badly and leaving himself nothing for the finish," Yip explained. "Last start, I took off the blinkers and he went much better but he was beaten by a wide draw. Tonight the barrier draws were very important so he was able to win again from barrier two." Caspar Fownes edged away again in the trainers' championship race with a maiden victory for Baazigar (Shane Dye) in the fourth race and predicted a worthwhile future for the three-year-old. "He's a later maturing sort of horse and he isn't all there yet," Fownes said. "But he does have a bit of ability and to win first time at Happy Valley is a pretty good indication of that. I hope we'll get another win out of him before the season is over, but the best of him won't be seen until next season or even beyond." Next season isn't a given for Optic King (Simon Yim Hin-keung) who broke through for a result in the Class Five Yee Wo Street Handicap, 1,000m. The Peter Ng Bik-kuen-trained gelding had run 19 times without running a place in Hong Kong but mostly over longer distances where he had generally shown some speed. "He hadn't finished those races off so I discussed with the owners the idea of bringing him back to a sprinting distance tonight," Ng said. "He was able to keep pace with the leaders and still finish the race this time, but because he is on a 19 rating he is still in danger. Even after the rehandicap for this win, he is going to be on a very low rating and will need to win again to avoid compulsory retirement when the season ends." http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/n...ws20070322.asp 
|
|
#3
03-22-2007, 04:22 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Sick, sick, sick. update..... Poison dart device found at race track Police in Hong Kong are investigating an elaborate device found embedded in the turf at a world-famous horse track apparently designed to shoot poison darts at the animals at the start of a race. A track supervisor unearthed the device on Wednesday morning while making routine checks of the starting points for races scheduled that evening at the Happy Valley racetrack, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said in a statement. The remote controlled shooter included 12 metal tubes, each 30 centimetres long, filled with darts buried in the grass under the spot where the starting gates would be situated for 1200 metre races on Wednesday night. The tubes, spaced so each would aim up at a horse, were wired together and linked to a wireless receiver, according to a local newspaper and a police source who declined to be identified. "The obvious intent was that it was going to fire these little darts which have got some kind of chemical in it ... up from the ground up to where the horse's starting gate is," said the senior police source. "I doubt very much that it was meant to do anything more than just slightly tranquilise the horse. That's my speculation." The police source said the shooter was almost certainly related to betting, and could be linked to organised crime syndicates, known as triads. "It could well be that triads are part of that, especially the gambling which is done outside the Jockey Club's system," he said. "If you can get the horse to slow down just enough, it looks like a normal race and the favourite may not come in." The darts had been sent to a laboratory to try to identify the chemical used. "The full nature of the device and its intended purpose has not been established at this time. However, no explosives were found," the Jockey Club said. The races proceeded as normal on Wednesday night. Reuters http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/poi...153236956.html
|
|
#4
03-22-2007, 04:23 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
|
|
#6
03-23-2007, 10:55 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Poison Dart Shooters????
Very bizarre story out of Hong Kong. Link
Supposedly tied to organized crime there, and HOPEFULLY just intended to slow the horses down. I say that as I hope they were not trying to kill any of the animals. Interesting to see how this plays out.... ALostTexan
|
|
#7
03-23-2007, 12:48 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
its bizarre alright.. racing there (and betting!) is so massive over there.. It could well involve the triads.. just goes to show how much people are willing to do for money.. On a non-too dissimilar topic,
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...?xid=rss-world
__________________
  #Grand
|
|
#8
03-23-2007, 02:11 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
#9
03-26-2007, 10:33 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
A co-worker of mine was in Hong Kong all last week. This was huge news there; the biggest story.
FWIW, he was telling me there's around 10 TV channels from his hotel room and TWO of them were strictly horse racing networks. At least somebody somewhere gets it.
|
|
#11
03-27-2007, 12:28 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
How did they really hope to score with this? Arent the stewards going to hear the things going off? and arent they going to find needles everywhere? ANd arent they going to notice horses getting wobbly? or not breaking right? I dont know how syndicates run but me thinks there might be easier ways to make money.
Could be more the work of a mad genius type who hadnt thought the whole thing through. Har!
|
|
#12
03-27-2007, 05:33 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
what a bizarre story. i wonder who came up with that idea--and i wonder who agreed?! some crazy stuff there. dart guns?? glad they found it beforehand.
you just can't make up crazy ish like that!!
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
|
|
#13
03-28-2007, 11:36 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Update from the South China Morning Post.....
Police seek four men over racetrack scare, as HK$1m reward posted CLIFFORD LO Four men are being sought over the remote-controlled projectile-launching device found buried in the Happy Valley racetrack last week. Police made the announcement yesterday as a HK$1 million reward was posted by the Jockey Club for information leading to their arrests. Police gave a detailed description of the device, which was buried at the starting point for the first race of last Wednesday's night meeting. It consisted of a 12-metre hose connected to an electrical device, a compressed gas cylinder and a camera lens. "Twelve sets of two to three metal tubes were connected to the polythene hose through sets of valves at regular intervals," a statement said. Nails and an unidentified solution found inside some of the tubes were being examined at the government laboratory, a source said. The device "could have resulted in serious injuries to horses or persons", the statement said. Police said the four men being sought had been seen at the track's 1,200-metre starting point two days before the race meeting, and again very early last Wednesday. The second time they were spotted was hours before the device was discovered by Jockey Club track supervisor Jackson Wong Chak-shuen. Officers said the men were aged between 25 and 40. "No sketches of the four men can be drawn because of limited information," a police source said. "We hope a high reward can turn up information that will help solve the case." A Jockey Club spokeswoman said the reward "demonstrates how seriously we are taking the case". The club has stepped up security measures at the Sha Tin and Happy Valley racecourses since the incident. Police have set up a telephone hotline (2548 2657) and an e-mail account address, crimeinformation@police.gov.hk for leads on the case. Information can also be passed on in writing to General Post Office Box No 999 or the Crime Information Faxline on 2520 2828. Additional articles..... http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/n...s20070328a.asp http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/n...s20070328b.asp
|
|
#15
03-28-2007, 12:54 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I am just glad that they are serious about it there. Here, the guilty party would be give a $500 and banned from the track for 10 days...
ALostTexan
|
|
#16
02-20-2009, 09:14 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
Seek respect, not attention.
Linear Mode
