He was there for the Macau Jockey Club’s (MJC) first thoroughbred race in 1989 and he’ll be there for its last. But trainer Joe Lau, like so many others involved in the sport in the city, deserves more.
After months of speculation, Lau and his colleagues had it confirmed on Monday that they will be stripped of their livelihoods in less than three months, with the Macau government confirming the Macau Jockey Club’s concession to run racing will cease on April 1 and no further tenders to operate the sport will be offered.
Should the meeting scheduled for March 30 be the last at Taipa racecourse, just 75 days remain of Lau’s decorated 30-year career as a Macau trainer.
“It’s very, very sad after all these years. I’m sad for everybody – it’s not only me, it’s my fellow trainers, everyone who works at the club and the owners who have supported the trainers for years. For it to end like this is just sad,” he said.
“It was going to happen sooner or later, everything has been hanging by a thread. We knew more or less, the rumour was we were going to finish at the end of March, but we officially found out through the government today.
“At least in Singapore they let people know more than a year in advance, so people could plan for the future.”
Lau has seen it all at Taipa. Following three years working as an assistant after relocating from his native Malaysia, he began training in his own right in 1993.
His honour roll features five Macau Derby victories and a string of wins in the Hong Kong-Macau interport series among a myriad of other highlights.
Last lap for Macau horse racing after authorities agree to contract termination
But in recent years, Lau has been forced to watch on as falling turnover, huge losses, less races, dwindling horse numbers and ageing facilities have seen the product reduced to a shadow of its former self.
Reports in the Macau press on Monday suggest the MJC and the government have been working on their “mutual agreement” to end racing since somewhere around the middle of last year, all the while some owners have continued to purchase horses and everyone was left to hope the sport would continue.
If that lack of transparency from officials rings a bell, it’s because it’s very similar to what went on in Singapore just last year.
Lau concedes the writing has been on the wall for some time. Horse shipments have been blocked since June last year, while the inability of MJC management – currently led by chairman Angela Leong On-kei, widow of Stanley Ho Hung-sun – to run the sport profitably is certainly nothing new.
Ho, who died in 2020, led a consortium to acquire the MJC in 1991. While the Macau government’s statement on Monday pointed to “operational difficulties, the inability of horse racing activities to meet the current development needs of society [and] a decline in popularity among locals and tourists in recent years” as reasons for the decision to kill racing, Lau believes if Ho were still alive, racing would be too.
“If Stanley was still alive and kicking, I don’t think the Jockey Club would be closing down so soon. This was his baby. He loved his racing. He had pride in it. If he was still alive, it wouldn’t be ending like this,” Lau said.
After racing ends and while the government works out what to do with the land, there will be the small matter of over 200 horses finding a new home and almost 600 staff finding something else to do.
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Lau, for one, is still somehow managing to maintain his dry sense of humour despite the turmoil.
“Maybe I’ll apply for a Hong Kong trainer’s licence,” he laughs. “I am joking. I don’t know what the future holds. I will let everything settle down first.
“This is not like leaving an office job where you just pack up your things and go. There are other things to follow up. We have to work out how to disperse the horses and they still need to be fed and looked after.”
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