Derby History

The distance of the Hong Kong Derby has been changed many times. At the earliest stage, it was run over one and a half miles. Since Sha Tin Racecourse was first opened in 1978, the race has been run there and the distance was initially set at 1800 metres. To be in line with the inaugural running of the World Series Racing Championship (the Hong Kong Cup being the finale of the series and it was upgraded to an International Group 1 over 2000 metres) and the Audemars Piguet QE II Cup (2000 metres) being upgraded to an International Group 2 (now an International Group 1), the Derby distance was stepped up from 1800 metres to 2000 metres in 1999/2000 in order to make this prestigious local race more consistent with the main stream of international racing.

Although the Derby is only for three-year-olds in many other countries, the Hong Kong Derby had its conditions changed in 1981 to become a race for four-year-olds only. This is mainly because all horses in Hong Kong are imported from overseas countries and they need adequate time for acclimatisation. Also, southern-hemisphere and northern-hemisphere horses are different in maturity levels. In order to be fair, they should not compete in the same race until they have attained a similar level of maturity.

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