The Hong Kong Jockey Club may have to take a HK$1.2B ($153.3M) "revenue hit" on Sunday "if the weather bureau’s forecast path for a burgeoning typhoon north-west of the Philippines is correct," according to Alan Aitken of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. A tropical depression is "forecast to build into a typhoon by the weekend" and advance to around 50km east of Hong Kong by 2pm on Sunday, with winds of up to 120km per hour. If that forecast proves correct, that would "almost certainly require a Typhoon 8 signal to be raised some hours before the scheduled first race time of 1pm Sunday, either late Saturday night or early Sunday." Last year’s opening day race meeting held more than HK$1.2B in betting handle and, with turnover on an upward trend, Sunday’s meeting turnover "might have been expected to reach even slightly higher than that." Jockey Club officials issued a statement saying, "We are closely monitoring conditions in consultation with the relevant authorities, including the Hong Kong Observatory." The Jockey Club last lost a race meeting to a typhoon when Typhoon Usagi "forced the cancellation of racing" in Sept. '13. Unlike past occasions, Jockey Club "has few, if any, available dates to stage a replacement date since it moved to 88 meetings last season and filled the gaps in the calendar" (SCMP, 8/31).
