Hong Kong: Poison dart shooter found at horse race track

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Poison dart shooter found at horse race track

Elaborate device found near starting gates at famous Hong Kong facility

Hong Kong police carry away two remote-controlled devices found near

a Happy Valley racetrack Wednesday.

Stringer/hong Kong / Reuters

 

Updated: 3:48 p.m. AKT March 22, 2007

 

HONG KONG - Police in Hong Kong are investigating an elaborate device

found embedded in the turf at a world-famous horse track apparently

designed to shoot poison darts at the animals at the start of a race.

 

A track supervisor unearthed the device on Wednesday morning while

making routine checks of the starting points for races scheduled that

evening at the Happy Valley racetrack, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said

in a statement.

 

The remote controlled shooter included 12 metal tubes, each a foot

long, filled with darts buried in the grass under the spot where the

starting gates would be situated for 3,937-foot races on Wednesday

night.

 

The tubes, spaced so each would aim up at a horse, were wired

together and linked to a wireless receiver, according to a local

newspaper and a police source who declined to be identified.

 

" The obvious intent was that it was going to fire these little darts

which have got some kind of chemical in it ... up from the ground up

to where the horse's starting gate is, " said the senior police source.

 

" I doubt very much that it was meant to do anything more than just

slightly tranquilise the horse. That's my speculation. "

 

The police source said the shooter was almost certainly related to

betting, and could be linked to organised crime syndicates, known as

triads.

 

" It could well be that triads are part of that, especially the

gambling which is done outside the Jockey Club's system, " he said.

" If you can get the horse to slow down just enough, it looks like a

normal race and the favourite may not come in. "

 

The darts had been sent to a laboratory to try to identify the chemical used.

 

" The full nature of the device and its intended purpose has not been

established at this time. However, no explosives were found, " the

Jockey Club said.

 

The races proceeded as normal on Wednesday night.

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