12 minute read
China in their hands
Conghua training centre and racecourse
The Hong Kong Jockey Club’s eight-year China plan is underway, writes Sally Duckett
DECIDING to build a new racecourse with an associated start-of-the-art training centre is a significant undertaking – if that project is carried out in a neighbouring country that has little in the way of horseracing background and operates strict border controls, it surely is a mountaineous project that should be abandoned before even attempted.
If that project is also seen as a strategic venture with a number of goals to achieve, not least to take a successful industry forward through into the next 50 years of development, then the importance of a successful conclusion cannot be underestimated.
But assuming that this is something that could not be achieved does not take into account the vision of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC), which has – in eight years since the idea was first mooted (and in reality far longer when it was realised that there was literally no space to move the horseracing industry forward in Hong Kong), planned, designed, co-operated, worked with Chinese authorities and government officials, financed and successfully built the Conghua racecourse and training centre. It is based some 200k inside the Chinese border, around a four-hour horsebox drive from Sha Tin.
The site is now – after the HKJC had to merely dig off a mountain top in order to create a plateau – a fully-fledged racecourse in waiting and a fully operative training centre.
There are both spaceous Dirt and Turf tracks, while all the race day infrastructure is in place – changing rooms, stewards’ rooms, parade rings; all are immaculately clean, modern and eerily unused just waiting to spring into life.
The racecourse will be staging its first non-betting, Chinese-based HKJC-operated “exhibition races” in March 2019 with an anticipated crowd of around 4,000 – 5,000 housed under temporary grandstands. The racecourse has been designed as a slightly smaller replica of Sha Tin.
As a training centre, there are a number of training tracks – again largely based on the 40-year old site in Hong Kong, but with the addition of a 5 degree uphill training gallop, as requested by the trainers – alongside numerous trotting circles and slow canter tracks, all-weather turn-out pens, 20 grass turn-out paddocks, horsewalkers, a round and straight swimming pool, veterinary surgery and centre, rehabilitation zone, staff and management accommodation, a human training centre for apprentices, staff, farriers and vets as well as a smart owners’ facility.
Conghua training centre and racecourse (2)
There are 660 stables in a number of barns, and trainers can take a “wing”, which can house up to 34 horses.
The site opened in August 2018 and nine trainers were “invited’ to send up a string of between 15 to 20 horses each. At present, there are around 150 horses training at Conghua, though since opening there has already been a turnover of around 500.
The importance of the whole enterprise to the Hong Kong racing industry can not be underestimated, and the concept goes some way to solving a number of pressing and developing issues in Hong Kong.
Winfried Engelsbrecht-Bresges, CEO of the HKJC, certainly believes that the HK$3.7 billion investment (€377 million) has been money well spent.
The concept found its life in 2010 after the Asian Games; the equestrian sector was based at the Conghua site, which is located in the Guangdong province of the Greater Bay Area of China, north east of Hong Kong.
The HKJC was fully involved in setting up the games and used the event as a launch pad into this ambitious project.
"We have been working on this project for six or seven years,” explains Engelsbrecht- Bresges of the concept, which has been for such a huge project a short space of time to get off the drawing board and into reality.
“We think it is a unique project. We are pretty convinced it will help Hong Kong racing to develop to the next stage and continue to ensure we have the world’s best horses and the world’s best facilities.
“It is a legacy of the Asian Games. We were able to acquire the piece of land, which is around 150 hectares and two and a half times the size of Sha Tin. We had to first create a equine disease-free zone (EFDZ), and this was not easy, but it helped us to ensure that the horses as Conghua have the same health status as in Hong Kong.
“It is a beautiful fresh air environment, there are no challenges in the environment; it is a Chinese environmentally protected site, and we are extremely certain that there are no negative challenges.”
There is now a biosecure, inter-linking, cross-border corridor from Sha Tin through to Conghua, which ensures that the two sites have the same internationally recognised and approved health status.
Horses travelling to Conghua are loaded into “sealed” lorries at Sha Tin, and the transport does not stop until it reaches Conghua – special border controls are in place to allow the lorries, grooms and drivers through while all others need to queue.
Once at Conghua the lorries enter the site, which still is protected by an impenetrable fence, double-locking gates and wash facilities, with the horses unloaded in a special designated area before moving to their respective barns. The border requirements take place on site, requiring a Conghua-based government department with a staff of 40.
“We really could leverage the EDFZ – it was a strategic investment for China and a strategic investment for us and the Greater Bay Area and required very strong collaberation between HK and Guangzhou,” explains Engelsbrecht-Bresges.
The importance of these measures are immense – if a breach were to be discovered, Hong Kong racing would lose its international racing status. The HKJC has yet to persuade the Australian racing authorities that the EDFZ is secure, though ongoing talks are in place.
“The EDFZ really is an asset and extreme opportunity and a catalyst for the development of the equine industry in China – both horseracing and equine sport,” informs Engelsbrecht-Bresges.
“It took a significant time to be established and be internationally accepted, though there are some teething problems with Australia, which we can hopefully overcome.
“First, we needed to convince the Hong Kong government that the risk of any equine disease is minimal – racing raises HK$1.3 billion in tax revenue a year; the government won’t be playing ‘harikari’ with that!
“There are multiple layers involved, stakeholders engaged to get approvals for things such as the import of feed and drugs, so that our vets and horsemen can practice as required.
“It is the largest strategic investment by the HKJC since Sha Tin was built 40 years ago,” adds Engelsbrecht-Bresges placing the investment into context.
“Forty years ago Hong Kong racing had Happy Valley only, and the decision made to build Sha Tin was a little bit like the move to Conghua – it was on an island, there was little infrastructure; it was away from the centre. But where would racing be in Hong Kong now without Sha Tin?”
And while the development will add to the number of horses in training for Hong Kong racing, currently there are 1,220 at Sha Tin and this could initially increase with the 660 stables in China, and obviously offers the possibility of a third Hong Kong-operated racecourse (though the betting option in the no-gaming world of China is currently strictly off the table despite its importance to Hong Kong racing) there was a more pressing need for the Conghua training centre: the cramped Sha Tin is in urgent need of refurbishment.
“The stables built for horses at Sha Tin reflect the quality of 40 years ago,” says Engelsbrecht-Bresges. “To further Hong Kong racing we need to replace and refurbish Sha Tin – we need to build state-of-the-art modern facilities and we have a €150 million investment plan for the next phase of Sha Tin.
“We could only do this if we moved horses to Conghua – we can’t knock down stables and do the significant work with horses on site.”
That phase is envisaged as a five to sevenyear plan with batches of horses moving to the China site as required.
The journey from Sha Tin to Conghua by lorry takes around four hours
It is something that the HKJC is ready to move ahead with, now that the horses have been on site in China since August and the project is initially deemed to be successful.
The “dual site” trainers with horses have trained winners, while Hong Kong-based owners, who were perhaps initially a little unsure of the project – travelling horses to the races in Hong Kong was an alien concept – have begun to embrace the change due to the winners that emerged. The process has kicked into gear quicker than even the ambitious HKJC team planned and the site has already lost its “pre-training” tag.
To the end of December through the five-month period since Conghua has been operational, 40 winners have been trained at the site.
“We initially thought trainers would take horses back to Hong Kong two or three weeks ahead of a race, but they are travelling down and running the same week – and winning,” says Andrew Harding, the HKJC’s Executive Director, Racing. “We thought this would all take perhaps a year to phase in, but it has come much quicker.
“We are already needing to ramp up the logistics – the transport between the two was initially twice a week, but we are extending it to six days a week much earlier than anticipated.
“The travelling process initially took five business days to go through the end to end process, possibly this could even take eight.
“Our dual side trainers said that was too long. Now it has been narrowed down to two days – trainers can quickly plan to send horses from Conghua to Sha Tin; they can ship on Monday to race on Wednesday at Happy Valley – the horses need to undergo certain veterinary examinations ahead of racing so need to travel down two days ahead of racing. They can then return on Friday.
“The transport costs are all part of the HKJC’s service and owners do not see any extra expense,” adds Harding.
The nine trainers with horses on site include John Size, John Moore, Danny Shum, Chris So Casper Fownes and Tony Cruz.
All have been successful with their Conghua horses (which are identified as such for the betting public) and they are kept abreast of the training at Conghua courtesy of video, timing facilities and real-time technology provided by the HKJC.
“John Size and Danny Shum in particular have spent a lot of time here,” adds Harding. “We have had applications from other trainers to send horses here and we will be adding another two after the Chinese New Year with possibly another two later in 2019.”
Engelsbrecht-Bresges adds: “I visited around two weeks after the first batch of horses arrived on site and I was surprised how well the horses looked, even then horses were eating better, were more relaxed, were looking good in their coats.”
The trainers have sent their own staff to the site – it was a requisite that anyone applying had to have leading and experienced staff for the move to China.
Some barrier trails have been held, attended by jockeys, and it is envisaged that in future jockeys will make more frequent journeys to China to ride work.
Owners, too, are not forgotten, with a lavish owners’ room to welcome them, but the HKJC is mindful that their significant investments in imported horses is protected, which provides another arm of the Conghua strategic plan
“Strategically, with Conghua in place now, horses can be brought into Hong Kong racing cycle who are not easy to train in Hong Kong currently – stallions, colts and fillies,” explains Engelsbrecht-Bresges. “It gives the opportunity to our owners to upgrade the quality of horses that they bring into Hong Kong. It also means that colts can be kept as colts – owners can be spending €1.5 million to €2 million on horses, you don’t want to immediately do a ‘clip’ that takes significant value off them!
“The quality of racing in Hong Kong is such that it creates stallion value and we want that value to be realised for our owners.”
As for equine numbers it is not envisaged that there will be a great increase in the size of the horse population – rather a continual improvement in quality.
“There will be a small increase in numbers, but not significant,” explains Engelsbrecht- Bresges. “The competition at the top of the bloodstock market is extreme, we want to create more options for owners, then we can see what new sources of horses might suit Hong Kong. We will be looking at other sources of bloodstock, too, for example South Africa to open up further import markets.
Turn-out paddocks
Horses arriving at Conghua
“Around 90 per cent of our races are run on good to firm, with mainly sprinter/milers – though we can get milers who can stretch to 2000m so we will be looking into those options.
“We hope that owners will be able to experiment more. For instance, they might be able to bring horses earlier into Hong Kong giving them more time to acclimatise to our environment and be sure the horse fits into Hong Kong.
“Maybe there will also be a quicker exchange of horses if a horse does not work out, while, moving two or three years forward, with the world-class equine clinic on site, horses can have treatments at Conghua, spend the required time there, enjoy their rest and recuperation and then return to racing. It should give greater longevity to careers.”
With little space at Sha Tin for recuperation or veterinary work, the ability for trainers to be able to make use of such facilities will be immeasurable and will be key to extending careers of horses, while also a vital improvement in horse welfare.
The entrance
And for more economic reasons, with all-aged sprint handicaps being the mainstay of Hong Kong racing, it is important that horses can last longer, can continue to provide a return on investment for owners, offer punting opportunities for the betting crowd and that vital tax revenue for the government.
But the goals of Conghua do not end there – the local Guangzhou government is keen to pursue and develop a tourist industry, the site being in a pretty area just an hour or so away from Chinese urban communities and with its important tourist attraction of hot springs.
After a visit to Germany the local major likened the region to the spring area at Baden-Baden and appreciated how well racing can work in tandem with tourism.
China as a nation currently boasts the world’s fastest developing middle-class – the local city of Guangzhou is termed the “science city” and the border city of Shenzhen, driven through to access China from Hong Kong, is a fast-developing silicon valley housing Chinese and Asian powerhouse global operations such as Huawei, Tencent, BGI and ZTE.
If the local population can convert to horseracing fans, opportunities are endless. As an equestrian man, Engelsbrecht- Bresges sees the development of the Greater Bay Area and its EDFZ as a key driver of a whole equestrian industry.
With Hong Kong’s airport already a key site in the global movement of horses, the HKJC is already planning the development of a world-leading quarantine centre for racehorses and sport horses, facilitated by a geographical infrastructure that will support international equestrianism at the highest level.
The first “exhibition raceday” is to take place on March 23 and will feature five races.
“Five exhibition races will be run under the governance of rules of racing of the club, with the participation of only Hong Kong-based horses, trainers and jockeys, including all of the HKJC’s sampling, laboratory analysis, veterinary regulation and controls in place.”
Of course, as regards horseracing, the elephant in the room is betting and until there is a change in policy by the Chinese government there is no chance of change. Stringent controls will be in place for March 23.
The HKJC’s executive director for customer and international business development, Richard Cheung says: “In compliance with the laws and policies of the mainland, the club will not offer betting on the races. There will be no live broadcasts of the races and races will be shown in Hong Kong after a 15-minute delay.
“Selected media outlets in the mainland will broadcast the races with a one-hour delay,” adds Cheung.
Long term, with the successful operation of the site, with the development of technology, it is perhaps not inconceivable that there could be perhaps a “betting zone” in the Greater Bay Area to match the EDFZ.
Many usual restrictions have already been changed by the cash-laden HKJC in its establishment of Conghua by discussion, planning, co-operation at all levels from the local government Guangdong officials to the height of Bejing to the border controllors at Shenzhen.
With the foresight of an ambitious man at the helm and a strong team with him, who knows where the end is – if there is an end at all.
If horseracing has a future in China, this is where it will be.
