With my partner halfway around the world with her family and girlfriends, some of whom have a vested interest in certain runners at the races at Chantilly and Royal Ascot, I have been with friends watching everything happening halfway around the world unfold from home base in Hong Kong and thoroughly enjoying the racing albeit vicariously. There’s been the pageantry and sense of history and style that comes so effortlessly to the French with France being the home of Chanel,

Does Hong Kong racing actually have, well, hard and fast whip rules? One hears that these indeed exist, but anything in writing for everyone to understand that doesn’t read like a math exam and not only for Officialdom? Not to stir a hornet’s nest, but if the majority of these “rules” are, let’s say, up to the discretion of the race day Stewards, how does any of this work to the satisfaction of what’s known as “the punter”? I ask this, because especially over the past couple

The Annual Margot Robbie Lookalike Award: Nicole Hyland, the long suffering wife of now retired jockey Samuel Hyland and always known for those immortal words, “You can do it, big boy! Get your leg over!” This was quite recently when her former jockey-husband had a rather hard time trying ever so hard to mount a somewhat bored looking horse standing in the pasture and waiting for Samuel to get on and just DO it, baby! The “When You Don’t Have An Idea” Award: The anti-drugs

For especially the past decade, we have been hearing about the need and importance to “network” and about “startups” and a species known as NGOs. Having met many involved involved with any and all of the above, most are not exactly scams, but how they actually help people, appear to be negligible. Of course, this might also be because of having met the wrong people and not enough right people and coming face to face with too much “slacktivism” and bs. The middle management p

Watching Diamond Necklace win the Prix de Diane at Chantilly on Sunday separated the men from the boys- though here is a 3-year old filly who makes one realise what the term “different gravy” means as far as quintessential equine talent is. The racing at Chantilly is also about how much the actual beaucoup de style on show adds to the importance of creating the perfect brand personality and marketing this with that certain je ne sais quoi lacking and with some of the big rac

Matt Chapman, for my money, like Brother James Brown was the hardest working man in the world of funk, is the hardest working person in British horse racing with no fear to go where even angels fear to tread, had something to get off his chest, and he did just that last week about how horse racing and “music festivals” don’t exactly making sweet music together. https://x.com/mcyeeehaaa/status/2064726063670833482?s=46 He’s right, of course, though having been to Roskilde and

One couldn’t really call it a rerun, but for those of us who have been in Hong Kong for pretty much all of our lives, there was something almost nostalgic, compellingly competitive and very much full of bon hommie about the racing and the vibes at Happy Valley last night. And the person to thank for this was David Beckham. Whatever weird concoctions might be being served up like the oddity named “Racing with Football”, meaning the promotion of the FIFA World Cup 2026, having

It’s not about pining for the “good old days”, but, instead, wondering who there is in Hong Kong with the chutzpah and creative and strategic talent to, paraphrase the Beatles, take a good song or even an okay idea for a piece of communication, and make it better, better, better? From the terrain I survey and by now something that I know pretty darn well, I see arid land- perhaps a few smart people, but having very little in the way of creating communication skills. Hong Kon

It’s about making up for lost time and opportunities and there needing a paradigm shift where music can continue to be happily streamed, but what about the entertainment value of food, glorious, food and those who create this? What I have seen happening over the past few years has been the rise and rise and rise in the popularity of the culinary world where there’s a growing interest in the creation and preparation of new dishes and how and where these are being presented, bu

The world must quickly learn to wean itself from the vulgarity of the Tangerine Man in the White House who is an unapologetically corrupt, narcissistic and a serial blubber of evil wreaking havoc wherever he and his filth move and leave a long line of slime behind them. He has stolen the sunshine, lollipops and roses from us and made the world a dark and deeply divided place with dank plots and subplots never seen before. Now, more than ever, the world needs the light switche

Cool is a frame of mind and not something that can be manufactured and which is why someone like Jean Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan or Steven Segal were never ever cool, but Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee and James Coburn were. It’s why those who wear shades indoors always bang into glass doors and are seen as doofuses, but, not so those who keep it real and why we’re seeing the end of “influencers” who, like KOLs, are no longer niche and have become part of what could be termed “

If variety is the spice of life, we’re then living these days in a tossed fruitcake salad of artichokes and funk and thunk that have us coming up for air pretty much every day and asking Alfie, what it’s all about, mate? Whatever happened to imagination and suddenly being in a real time world without things like apps for saps where a frog and a pig had such a unique relationship and kids met The Count, the Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Bert and Ernie? Because we’re all now i

There was a quiet, but very sharp verbal bullet shot out when Zac Purton was asked by Captain Obvious about his feelings in having just ridden two thousand winners in Hong Kong. Though applauding the achievement and knowing how much he had to go through to prove his “worth” to Hong Kong racing, what didn’t go unnoticed was Zac taking aim and mentioning how he didn’t have anyone rolling out the red carpet for him. This was a not so subtle dig at all the jumping through hoops

When I was first introduced to him, I thought that I was either meeting the younger brother of famous R’nB singer Chaka Khan or was meeting the great Chaka Khan herself. This person’s head was a shock of hair not unlike that on one of those troll dolls. What really won me over was his smile- open, genuine and always full of happiness. Blaine Whittaker, an Australian saxophonist who had been playing and blowing throughout pretty much every venue in Hong Kong for what’s now bee

Every bean must have a pocket Every pocket must hold a dream Every dream must be worth pursuing Each garden must have an aubergine Words don’t need to have meaning Rhythm says exactly what they mean Music might have a cadence And her smile said everything Wrangler girl wore blue jeans She gave me everything and more Sloppy Joes and veggie tacos Happy days in a Japanese home down peaceful little Park Road Dragonflies and light shows Blue Velvet and Roy Orbison The smell of nap

While watching the comedy of errors before the second race at Caulfield on Saturday when the gates didn’t open because the starter’s button wasn’t working, and then there was some other malfunction, this time when the manual start didn’t work and there was talk about all the horses being backed out before the G spot was finally found and the horses were off and kinda running. Unfortunately, there was no Dr Doolittle around, so, gawd knows how all this much ado about nothing a

What confused and worried and frustrated him was where it all went. Though still there, it wasn’t exactly the great grandchildren of Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building or those wonderful uptown Motown and Staxed sounds. This concerned my friend, because other than extremely few caring whether it was a sharp or a flat or something very much diminished and in need of mouth to mouth resuscitation, he was convinced that the music had been silenced and thrown under the bus or sw

Press Pause Just because It’s all moving too fast When it should be slow We still go past Go And Old Kent Road Well, it’s no longer there Running out of time And running outta rhymes Wish I could see you again And get lost in your smile That’s when I was happy and happiest Copyright © Hans Ebert 2026 He was always looking for love and never able to find it, because he already knew how it felt and maybe when he lost his way, he lost how to find new love, too. We don’t talk ab