State-of-the-art Conghua facility kills two birds with one stone

It is described as a 'win-win' situation for all. And so it seems as Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges lovingly takes you through the genesis of the equestrian venue for the Asian Games.

Built in a record seven months - work on the site is an extension of an earlier equestrian venue built for the 8th National Traditional Games of the Ethnic Minorities of China - the 152-hectare venue in Conghua, 40 kilometres northeast of Guangzhou, will become a state-of-the-art training centre for the Jockey Club once the Games are over.

Win-win is apt. The Games organisers got a ready-made facility for free - it was built at a cost of HK$250 million by the Jockey Club; the mainland gets its first Specific Equine Disease-Free Zone (SEDFZ); and the Jockey Club gets land that it had been seeking in Hong Kong for the past couple of decades to no avail, space that will allow the Club to increase its horse racing population.

'Once the Asian Games are over, we will have a site which is 2 1/2 times the size of Sha Tin and which will become a centre of training for horses in China. Everyone will benefit,' says Engelbrecht-Bresges.

It all began soon after the Jockey Club successfully provided the Beijing Olympics with the equestrian venue at Sha Tin, built at a cost of more than HK$1.2 billion.

'One of the reasons why the equestrian events at the Olympics couldn't be held in China was because of the quarantine situation in the country,' said Engelbrecht-Bresges.

In the past, horses brought into the country had to be left behind, as was the case with the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing, resulting in most teams using local horses. This was always a huge obstacle for the mainland hosting major equestrian events.