Happy Valley Racecourse

Happy Valley Racecourse is one of the most extraordinary sporting venues in the world — a horse-racing track wedged into a valley on Hong Kong Island, surrounded on all sides by residential tower blocks that rise 30 storeys above the stands, creating an amphitheatre where the sport, the betting, the beer, and the spectacle of Hong Kong life converge under floodlights every Wednesday evening during the racing season.

Horse racing is Hong Kong's most popular sport and its only legal form of gambling — the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which operates both racecourses, is the territory's largest taxpayer and its largest charitable organisation, and race nights attract crowds that treat the event as a combination of sporting entertainment, social gathering, and financial speculation. The betting turnover on a single race night can exceed HK$1 billion, making Hong Kong's racing industry one of the most lucrative in the world.

Wednesday night racing at Happy Valley (the season runs from September to July) is the accessible experience — general admission is cheap, the atmosphere is electric, the food stalls serve noodles and beer, and the sight of thoroughbreds racing beneath tower-block walls while 20,000 people scream is unlike any other sporting experience. The racecourse has been operating since 1846 (making it one of the oldest in Asia), and the Hong Kong Racing Museum in the stands tells the story of a sport that the British imported as colonial entertainment and that Hong Kong transformed into a civic institution.