Stephen Higgins is head of raceday operations, track and equipment at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, whose main responsibility is to ensure the Sha Tin and Happy Valley races.
Ahead of the final meeting of the season at Happy Valley on Wednesday, he spoke to Stephy Zhang about how he and his team ensure a safe and healthy environment for thousands of racehorses, trainers and jockeys on race days.
In 2020, following Hong Kong’s first black storm in three years, Stephen Higgins and his team ensured that Sunday’s race at Sha Tin went ahead without a hitch despite almost 500mm of heavy rain.
Normally, the grass at Sha Tin is considered one of the strongest in international racing, and at the heart of this high-level operation is Higgins and his team of 240 professionals.
Since joining the Hong Kong Jockey Club in 2017 as head of raceday operations, track and racing facilities, Higgins has served as track manager at Sha Tin and Happy Valley, ensuring a safe and healthy environment for thousands of racehorses, trainers and jockeys.
But a lot of work goes into ensuring that Higgins can deliver a “going, safe and entertaining” race day.
Arise and shine
Higgins’ team start their race day routine at 3am and he joins in for the key track inspection, which starts at 7am.
Depending on the day, he walks the track in Sha Tin or Happy Valley with his track manager and additional supervisor to assess the surface for safety, balance and stability on a scale from heavy to good to firm.
The team immediately deploys four special tools – a diameter, a Clegg hammer, a shear vane and a stick – to systematically record the actual turf conditions, vertical force and shear force.
Hong Kong is currently the only jurisdiction to use all four instruments simultaneously with such precision, and race fans can directly access updated penetrometer and Clegg hammer readings before the first race of each meeting.
Higgins’ early inspection determines the day’s watering strategy.
“We generally water on race day, depending on the weather,” Higgins explained. “But usually we’ll be evaluating it from a safety perspective and from a kind to a horse perspective. It’s generally between five and 10 minutes. If you divide the minute by two, that gets the amount of millimeters of water we’ll put on the whole track.”
Home field
Managing grass is a farming challenge during Hong Kong’s harsh 46-week season. The tracks are based on hybrid Bermuda grass, which blooms until the end of October.
As temperatures drop, Higgins’ team shortens the dormant Bermuda and replaces it with perennial grass for the winter, reversing the process in April.
To keep a very sensitive sand profile, no organic material is allowed to remain on the surface; he said specialized lawn mowers pick up all the grass clippings at once instead of leaving the mulch.
“So obviously the lawnmower is very important,” he noted.
The team also relies heavily on the Verti-drain machine, which uses finger-like blades to punch tiny holes in the ground to reduce surface pressure and maintain the track’s vital flexibility.
“(Regarding) the performance of the track, generally we can receive about a thousand millimeters of rain per hour, and it flows over the track and the track is drained very quickly,” he said. “It’s as well designed as a golf course, or if you think of a grassy beach.”
This skillfully managed profile consists of several layers of sand that slope down to the water table below the turf. Water enters the raceway, quickly filters through the sand profile, hits the stagnant water and moves horizontally into the gutters within the course to drain quickly.
“We had a black storm in Happy Valley on the day of the race, and I think it was black rain around 5pm,” Higgins recalled, noting that the rain reached a rate of 600 to 700mm per hour. “And the rain stopped at about 17:30. And when it came to 7.15, we ran down that path.”
Military precision
Exactly two and a half hours before the first race, the team returns to the track for a second round of tests using a penetrometer, a Clegg hammer and a rod.
Higgins checks these figures against historical data from previous meetings to make a final assessment before officially calling the baseline conditions.
Once the land is declared, horses and workers follow a strict calculation. During the race, Higgins is constantly on the move – from the weighing room to the parade ring and treatment room – a familiar face throughout the complex.
“So under my control in terms of race day planning and timing to make sure everything goes on time, that is – I do it,” he said.
Horses must arrive at the arena 25 minutes before their race before moving to the bedding boxes. Grooming takes about 10 minutes, and horses enter the parade ring exactly 15 minutes before post time.
Jockeys come in for 14 minutes to talk to owners and trainers, riding between 11 and nine minutes before the race. They must exit the parade ring at the eight-minute mark and arrive at the starting gate with three minutes, where the marshal will arrange them in their loading order before the gates open.
At the same time, a parallel race occurs inside the changing room, where a team of 12 valets manages the equipment and silks. With only 30 minutes between races, the equipment is tight.
This complex calculation time returns to Higgins’ mind.
As the gates open, he moves from the parade ring to the eighth-floor stewards’ box at Sha Tin to watch the race with chief accommodation officer Mark Van Gestel. While stewards focus on policing jockey behavior and enforcing race rules, Higgins monitors the event from an infrastructure and safety perspective.
“My role at that time is to watch the race and look for any issues that may arise in terms of the track, to monitor safety,” Higgins said. “If a horse makes contact with the rail, then we’ll review the race afterwards, we’ll go and check that spot. If a horse might stumble, we can go and check the ground to make sure everyone’s OK, that there aren’t any issues.”
Although the original race is a very dangerous sport, Higgins insists that extensive preparation keeps incident rates very low. Throughout the season featuring 864 races, major emergencies remain rare. However, attention is a must.
Higgins recalls a recent incident where jockey Harry Bentley fell on the back straight, breaking his arm. His team immediately coordinated with the medical team to administer pain relief, determine if transport to the hospital was needed and communicate with Bentley’s family.
On any given race day, Higgins commands a chief medical officer, two doctors, four nurses and up to 12 assistants and drivers of St John’s Ambulance, with two of their three on-site ambulances actively following the field during the race.
Beyond physical injuries, pre-race delays caused by stiff horses at the starting gates require immediate correction. If the on-site veterinarian determines the horse is unfit to run, Higgins must immediately assess the impact of the run.
In the entertainment business
Hong Kong’s volatile weather is a frequent source of disruption to the race schedule. However, Higgins notes that while rain simply changes track conditions from good to bare, soft or heavy – which can increase safety by slowing horses – thunderstorms pose an immediate danger.
“What we’ve seen recently is during the race we get thunderstorms and we’ve been very careful, and we’ve been informed about how that can affect the safety of the day,” he said.
Higgins monitors conditions using two independent digital networks. The first is an indoor weather station that operates 365 days a year, monitoring rainfall and wind speed at four or five different monitoring points on the course.
“And then we have this more sophisticated security system of the Strike Guard, and this is what measures in real time the number of hits that we get within that distance,” he added, noting that the system tracks real-time hits at 2km, 4km and 10km distances.
“It doesn’t just tell you where the storm is and it’s happening now — it predicts where the storm will be in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes,” Higgins explained.
This forecast tracking determines whether a storm will last or pass. If a strong cell threatens the track, Higgins will implement a 30- to 45-minute suspension, with riders in the waiting room while the event management team updates the public.
The Briton’s career path explains his highly analytical approach to sports equipment.
A chartered surveyor with a degree in quantity surveying, his previous career focused on major commercial property developments, including the redevelopment of Chelsea Football Club’s Stamford Bridge stadium in London.
However, having ridden and worked with racehorses since the age of 15, his passion for racing began at an early age. In his late 20s, he joined the British Jockey Club, eventually managing 16 different racecourses across the country.
This view of world-class infrastructure extends to human athletes as well. Under Higgins’ leadership, the club established and expanded the Jockeys Center of Excellence.
The facility has a permanent race day chef who prepares meals tailored to each rider, hot and cold cryotherapy areas, saunas, a special gym and a special lounge.
This elite support ensures Hong Kong remains an attractive destination for top-class equestrian talent such as Zac Purton, James McDonald, Joao Moreira and Ryan Moore.
“When the jockeys come from overseas, they see that set-up, they see that access, which they don’t have access to at other racetracks,” Higgins said.
As night falls on race day and the crowds disperse, Higgins and his team enter a new cycle, reviewing the day’s races and preparing for the next meeting just days before. However, his definition of a successful day remains grounded in the fundamentals of the game.
“For me, a good race day is sunshine, going steady, safe and entertaining, because we’re in the entertainment business,” Higgins said.
“And that all the information that should be given to our customer groups is delivered and that the owners, trainers, jockeys have a great day. If we can provide a safe, compelling, and entertaining race that’s fair, then we’ve done a good job.”
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