On May 17, Pakistani artist Sameen Agha received the 2024 Sovereign Asian Art Prize Grand Prize with her red marble sculpture A Home is a Terrible Place to Love. Other winners included Hong Kong artists Michelle Fung for her mixed media piece Red Bean Stalk and Filipino artist Demet for PPE (Paint Palette Emulation). Established by Sovereign Asian Foundation (SAF) in 2003 with the purpose of giving promising new artists international exposure while supporting charity initiatives, SAF established this award that awards them.
This year’s SAF competition attracted over 800 entries from around the globe and awarded 30 shortlisted works with total prizes totaling HK$1.5 Million, to be displayed from June through September at Asia Society Hong Kong Center with proceeds being given back to charity through SAF.
HKJC contributes significantly to various taxes and causes, in addition to contributing to its Prize Fund. To ensure fairness of prize draws, several measures have been put in place; including stringent control over every step from boxing balls for transport to storage before drawing. Employees from security and customer service departments regularly test, measure and weigh materials used for the draw as well as the draw machine itself; additionally the same set of balls is not reused twice consecutively and each time is sealed after use by drawing machine employees.
The HK Prize lottery game in Hong Kong is a popular lottery option, where participants select six numbers between one and 49 each time they play. Three draws take place weekly: Tuesday, Thursday and either Saturday or Sunday and are broadcast live on television; there may be up to three prizes awarded per draw; first division prize funds can reach up to HK$188 Million! In addition, special Snowball draws may be conducted during festive occasions by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC).
Prize money for the 2023/24 racing season has increased by an 8 percent mark across all classes of competition, from Griffins to Class 1 and Four-Year-Old Classic Series races, while 1600m or longer distance races will carry an extra 10% premium over contests held over shorter distances.
As part of its plans to attract high-quality horses to Hong Kong’s long distance races at Sha Tin, the club has increased PP bonuses for both Class 2 and Class 3 horses, while boosting BMW Hong Kong Derby prize money and first two legs of DBS X Manulife Million Challenge by an extra HK$2 Million prize pool each. These increases should help attract even more top horses than before to Hong Kong where prize money structure is amongst the world’s most generous.
