When you think Sha Tin race days, it’s often the rusted-on punters and stiff presentations that are among the first things to come to mind. Compared to Happy Valley, it can be a fairly dull old place at times.

That certainly wasn’t the case on Sunday. Despite the nagging drizzle, there was a lively buzz throughout – no doubt helped by the 7,000 or so mainland Chinese tourists on track – and the place really came to life when HK$10 beer and ice cream was handed out before a performance from Mirror’s Edan Lui Cheuk-on.

After a 2023-24 season that saw local betting turnover on Hong Kong races slide nearly 10 per cent, the Jockey Club is trying just about everything to engage the next generation of fans.

Beefed up digital offerings are at the forefront of plans to get new fans to the racetrack. Time will tell just how well that works in turning people into actual racing fans.

But forget AI-driven parade rings and boy bands for a minute. Next on the horizon is the “golden opportunity” to entice some old fans back to the track.

Officials have spoken at length about what the Covid pandemic did to people’s race-going habits. For many, after long stints watching the races from the couch, the shift back to actually fronting up to the track simply hasn’t happened.

While Sunday’s 42,556-strong Sha Tin crowd was a five-year best for a season opener, it was still well short of the 68,271 who turned up for the first day of the 2019-20 campaign.

Enter Golden Sixty, the magnificent miler who brings fans through the turnstiles on his own.

It’s expected to be confirmed this week that the nine-year-old has run his last race, and that fans will get one last chance to salute their champion at his farewell at Sha Tin on September 22.

Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges is acutely aware how important it is to give Golden Sixty a fitting send-off – first, of course, because he deserves it, and second because of his unique pulling power.

“Golden Sixty is really a golden opportunity,” Engelbrecht-Bresges said on the sidelines of the recent Asian Racing Conference in Sapporo, before news of Golden Sixty’s retirement plans leaked.

“This retirement, when it happens, will not create new fans. It is more about whether it can help us drive people back to the track.”

So what can we expect? Could we see the 10-time Group One winner stretch out down the home straight once more à la Silent Witness, who had a race day gallop in front of his adoring fans past a billboard for each of his 18 career wins?

As one key participant joked this week, perhaps it’s best to avoid that lest Golden Sixty goes too well and connections change their mind and decide to target December’s Group One Hong Kong Mile after all.

Maybe trainer Francis Lui Kin-wai could channel storied Japanese handler Yoshito Yahagi and jump aboard Golden Sixty for a spin around the parade ring?

The Japanese honour their heroes so well, parading them in front of thousands of adoring fans, but Engelbrecht-Bresges admits Golden Sixty’s celebration can’t be a cut and paste of what they do in the Land of the Rising Sun.

“The interesting thing is that you have a much deeper appreciation of horses in Japan than in Hong Kong. If you do the same thing, you will not have the same result. It must be unique,” he said.

Perhaps a good starting point could be renaming September 22’s Group Three Celebration Cup (1,400m) the Golden Sixty Cup.

It’s a race Golden Sixty won in 2020 and if any Hong Kong galloper deserves a race named after them, it’s perhaps the best horse this city will ever see.

Engelbrecht-Bresges referenced the need for “entertainment elements” in the send-off, so perhaps we’ll see another big-name Cantopop artist wheeled out.

Whatever the club decides, it’s crucial it gets it right.