WHEN it comes to ‘junkets’ for the racing media the Hong Kong Jockey Club wins hands down with its spectacular Cathay Pacific International Week each December.

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch but in horse racing this could well be the exception – just ask those who partake of the annual Honkers media package.

Every year the HKJC heavily subsidizes what has become known as a pre-Christmas working holiday for hundreds of members of the racing media from throughout the world.

For a fraction of what it would cost an individual to travel to Hong Kong for International Week the racing media is wined, dined and treated like Royalty. All that the club asks is that those who seek package invitations provide proof that they legitimately covered the event.

Those attending for the first time cannot believe the red carpet treatment. Others who have been going there for years remember when it was even better. The word continues to spread in the racing media that this is ‘the place to be’ every December and the numbers continue to grow.

Back in the era when the star Queensland sprinter Falvelon and the Hong Kong favorite Silent Witness were dominating the big day there were some in the racing media almost embarrassed by the magnitude of this ‘junket.’

It reached such dizzy heights that a few media colleagues confided in a leading HKJC communications official over a few quiet drinks one year that they were 'doing too much for us.’ Can you imagine that – free-loaders from the media actually complaining that they were being too well looked after?

It had reached the stage where the social side of proceedings had started to overtake what the media was really brought there for to such a degree that some were too tired or hung over most days to even bother doing their jobs properly. You almost needed a holiday when you got home to recover from the week in Honkers.

Here’s an example of what the subsidized media package once included and in some cases still does: Return air fare and transfers from your point of embarkation worldwide; five nights’ accommodation in a five star hotel suite overlooking the spectacular Hong Kong harbor; a coach to and from Sha Tin for trackwork every morning where they provide a breakfast while you watch the action; an endless list of functions where you never put your hand in your pocket; and an array of gifts ranging from watches to merchandising jackets and caps etc.

That social calendar starts with the International Jockeys’ Challenge meeting at Happy Valley on the Wednesday night where they have a special grandstand function area set aside for the media to be wined and dined overlooking the track; a barrier draw function and luncheon on the Thursday (where unlimited Peking Duck was once the big drawcard) followed by a media welcome at a special dinner that night (often held at the big restaurant on The Peak); an invite to one of the biggest social events in Hong Kong, the International Ball on the Friday night (held either at the Convention Centre or the former Governor’s Residence at Stanley); then a city or islands tour on the Saturday with another free lunch and endless drinks thrown in.

By the time the International Race Day arrives on the Sunday many are almost asleep in the coach on the way to the track – fatigued by the endless round of wining, dining and socialising that has preceded what they actually came to cover.

The HKJC provides a huge high-rise suite at the media hotel on Hong Kong Island decked out with computers, food and drinks and then on race day at Sha Tin the press room on the ground floor provides a special luncheon area and some of the best media facilities on any racetrack in the world.

If that isn’t enough the media contingent is spoon fed with information – interviews with jockeys, trainers, officials; photographs provided by the club of everything that moves during their big week and on International Day; then comments from all the participating parties as the feature races are run.

When it is all finished, providing you can justify your trip with proof of coverage back home, you can return and do it all again the next year. Is it little wonder that some even double it as a pre-Christmas or annual holiday with their wives or partners?

The social side of the media package may have been scaled down to a degree from what it used to be – perhaps someone took our advice that it was affecting the amount of actual work being done. But it is still 10 out of 10 when it comes to racing ‘junkets’.

There is a similar sort of package – considerably more expensive and restrictive – on offer for the Dubai World Cup, which probably explains why these two big international meetings attract so much international media coverage.

Perhaps some of those Australian officials who continually complain that their annual carnival does not attract the media coverage they feel it should might consider going to Hong Kong and studying just what they do for visiting media on International Day.

That comment certainly does not apply to the Spring Carnival in Melbourne which is one of the most professionally run throughout the racing world from a media perspective. The copy that was churned out by the communications team at Racing Victoria in the carnival just ended was nothing short of sensational.

In fact, Eric O’Keefe – author of The Cup, a dramatic story of Damien Oliver’s epic journey to the winner’s circle in the 2002 Melbourne Cup – penned this article on his return to America from a memorable visit to Cup week a few years back.

It was headlined: ‘American Thoroughbred Racing Needs a Lifeline – and the Answer Could Be in Australia.’ It read in part:

‘Friday morning I stepped off a 14-hour flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles and got ready to make my way to Santa Anita for the Breeders’ Cup. Naturally I picked up a copy of the Los Angeles Times.

‘As I leafed through it, it was clear that jet lag had already set in. The only article I could find in sports about the races was about synthetic surfaces. It was one of those absurd moments when you know you just put your keys in your pocket only you can't find them anymore.

‘There had to be something somewhere, only I was too frazzled from my flight to pick it out. It didn't take long for me to come to my senses. There was no article.

‘Think about that. If Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were about to tee off in the U.S. Open and you had a look at the local paper where the tournament was taking place, wouldn't you expect the event to be all over the place?

‘Now what would you do if the Open were about to begin and the only story you could find was one about a group of grounds-keepers arguing over the merits of one type of seeded Bermuda fairway green over another?

‘You’d probably join the rest of America and stop reading newspapers. With press like that is it any surprise that the racing industry in the U.S. is on life support?

‘At Seabiscuit's final race in 1940, 78,000 watched him win the Santa Anita Handicap. On Friday, 37,651 showed up at the same California landmark for the biggest, richest race meet in North America. No wonder Santa Anita's parent company is in bankruptcy court.

‘The New York Times – I opened that paper this morning to find a whopping 200+ words devoted to the most memorable thoroughbred race of the last decade. That’s half the coverage the Times gave the Harvard-Columbia game and a fraction of what it devoted to an 18-year-old NBA hopeful dribbling his life away in obscurity in Israel.

‘I bring all this up because I just flew back from Australia, a country with one-tenth the population of the U.S. Yet the Australian racing industry is the envy of every racetrack operator in the States. There are not only more racetracks in Australia, there are more racetracks in Australia than in the U.S., Canada, Ireland and Great Britain combined.

‘The country’s greatest racing event is a four-day meet called the Melbourne Cup Carnival, and like the Breeders’ Cup it too ended on Saturday. Attendance on the first day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival was a tad over 107,000. That’s right!

‘More people packed into Flemington Racecourse for the first day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival than showed up at Santa Anita Park for two days of Breeders’ Cup. And things were just getting going. Over the remaining three race days, the Victoria Racing Club hosted an additional 250,000, which is why it is Australia’s largest single event.

‘The reason I’m so familiar with Australian racing is because I just wrote a book called The Cup. It’s about one of the most emotion charged episodes in the history of the Australia’s greatest race.

‘I won't give away the storyline, but it goes without saying that Damien Oliver's journey to the winner’s circle in the 2002 Melbourne Cup has been chosen as one of the greatest moments in the history of Australian sport.

‘Over the past six years, I’ve been to Australia four times, researching the book and writing the script for the companion movie with the Australian director Simon Wincer (Lonesome Dove, Free Willy).

‘So why is thoroughbred racing alive and kicking Down Under? The obstacles they face are no different – casino gambling, online competitors, and of course rising costs for everything under the sun.

‘But I’ll tell you what they do have going for them: the sort of press that champions a great story. (Not that synthetic surfaces aren’t gripping material!)

‘Go to Google and punch in the words ‘Jake Stephens Alcopop.’ I just did this and links to 666 stories popped up. Was the five-year-old gelding hailed as the next Secretariat? No. Was his owner a Whitney or a Mellon or, to use an Australian version of more money than God, a Murdoch? No. You know what Alcopop was? A story people wanted to read.

‘For the last two weeks, Melbournians read about him in their daily papers, and they watched his South Australian trainer on TV brushing off questions about the fact that he had taken out his license just a year ago. And Alcopop wasn’t even this year’s big news.

‘Center stage belonged to 81-year-old Bart Cummings, a 12-time winner of the Melbourne Cup who had three runners in the race.

‘Guess what? Neither Alcopop nor any of Bart’s runners won the Cup. So did the Australian media get this year’s Melbourne Cup wrong? Not at all!

‘The moment the Race That Stops the Nation concluded, the tabloids and the newspapers had a brand new story about a hard-luck trainer and a never-say-die jockey who believed in a great horse.

That’s a lesson their American counterparts should take to heart ... before another track goes bankrupt.’

Eric O’Keefe’s glowing praise of the media frenzy that surrounds the Melbourne Cup was spot-on. Just having an overseas writer of his talent and influence heap praise on Australian racing is worth more than millions of dollar spent in tourism advertising revenue.

The Hong Kong approach – although attacked from a different angle – achieves the same result. Gambling in Hong Kong is so big that hundreds of millions are poured into local charities every year by the Jockey Club. It can afford to subsidize media packages and lavish welcomes for the hordes of free-loading scribes that invade the place every December.

It happens to a lesser degree in Australia where the Sydney Harbor Cruise which launches the Sydney autumn carnival and the Golden Slipper is rated extremely highly by the racing media.

The Gerry Harvey and John Singleton media magic has rubbed off on the annual Magic Millions carnival when the surf meets the turf at the Gold Coast every January. They ensure the writers who can give them the best exposure make the most of an annual ‘junket’ on the tourist strip.

But at the end of the day it comes down to product and if it isn’t good enough to attract media exposure then no amount of ‘freebie’ or ‘junket’ will achieve the desired result. That is why Hong Kong in December and Melbourne in the spring are such success stories.

No-one embraces a champion like the racing fans of Hong Kong. Anyone fortunate enough to see the great Silent Witness race and win before a huge, adoring crowd, will never forget the experience.

The locals were out in force and dressed for the occasion in their Silent Witness merchandise. This particular day there were thousands of Japanese visitors waving the Rising Sun flags and cheering for their homeland hope, which was expected to prove a more than capable challenger.

Standing at the front of the big grandstand as that Sprint field thundered toward the furlong pole and the roar was deafening as Silent Witness raced past the Japanese pretender. The Rising Suns were flying at half mast as the local hero did a victory parade down the straight past his legion of admiring fans – many of whom had invested heavily despite the cramped odds. It was a scene that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

Little wonder a life-sized bronzed statue was recently unveiled to honor the achievements of the legendary Silent Witness ensuring that his spirit continues to live on at Sha Tin while he enjoys his years in retirement at Living Legends near Melbourne.

Designed and produced by renowned British sculptor Juliet Cursham, the statue depicts Silent Witness crossing the finishing line with his jockey Felix Coetzee saluting. The pair set a Hong Kong record of 17 consecutive wins in addition to a success at the top level in Japan.

This statue was jointly financed by the HKJC and the owners of Silent Witness, the Da Silva family, in recognition of his outstanding racing achievements and contributions which helped advertise the quality of Hong Kong racing to the world.