HONG KONG HORSE RACING EXCELS UNDER DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES

Hong Kong(HKJC) is a horse race place in a small part of Communist China dedicated to the horse. It doesn’t breed horses. It represents a club of horse owners. Horse racing is a nationally privileged sport.? It has the largest pari-mutual handles of any sport in the world. It purchases its horse-herd at sales around the world and imports a dozen more signals via simulcasting. It has developed one of the most diligent equine operations in moden history. It is the only known equine operation that fields and features eight and nine-year old Graded champions among its horse herd. Its product is 100% horse racing. To demonstrate its basic science and responsibilities it fields one of the oldest and soundest horse racing herds in existence, racing over dirt and turf. As part of its demonstration of inclusion, the sport is comprised of horsemen, women and family at every level of its sport.? While it has the world’s largest on-and-off-track pari mutual handles, it maintains a “purity of presentation” that largely demonstrates and celebrates its principle on-track preservation with great discipline, education and respect for the inclusion of the British brand of horse racing, product and accoutrements; the people who invented the game.

?The following is a statement made by CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges following this seasons championship day:

“We have a team dedicated to excellence and that makes the Jockey Club proud. It has shown today and the whole week that Hong Kong is back on the global stage and that Hong Kong racing is one of the global racing products which I feel as a city we should be proud of.”?? Turnover on the meeting was HK$1.697 billion, which included a commingling turnover record for a 10-race Hong Kong meeting of HK$429.6 million.

This is truly a successful horse racing enterprise!? The HKJC is a global exemplar generating professionally operated horse racing using facilities that appeal directly to legions of its fans experientially, monetarily and psychologically. Its on-track appeal and the talents of its competitors are charismatically involved with all sexes, all ages and all families of its population with a main focus of care and preservation of the horse.

The thousand-pound thoroughbred horses being guided and manipulated in the heat of the fiercest of competitions are paraded pridefully before each event in the company of their owners, trainers and handlers, all respectfully attired for the events.

The skill sets of man and beast, honed over thousands of hours of preparation and learning, collide ceremoniously in ancient contests of international warfare. More than a dozen countries? send representative warriors to compete in a designated coliseum to decide their skills in a modern-day display of “plunder” in an “Art of War.” Some prizes are retained in a vigorous display of talent and tenacity by the home country! But the foreigners capture their share of millions of dollars of coin and trappings.? The history books of Kubla and Genghis Khan are brought alive and the horse is once again revered and restored dutifully to his pinnacle in history.

Hong Kong’s thoroughbred horse racing’s arduous ascendency from the 50’s and 60’s is truly a remarkable study and should be an example to an American product in serious decline.

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