World racing's promised land comes closer as Hong Kong Jockey Club launches meeting in China

City joins hands with authorities in mainland to help establish a thoroughbred racing and breeding industry there

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The Hong Kong Jockey Club will lend assistance to the meeting at Jinma racecourse, as Dubai did last year. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Published: 11:15pm, 9 Sep 2015Updated: 1:29pm, 9 Dec 2016

There will be no gambling, no big-name jockeys, trainers or horses, but world racing's "El Dorado" has moved one step closer, with the Jockey Club to put its name on a race day in Chengdu under a new formal partnership with Chinese racing authorities to establish the sport on the mainland.

The meeting on November 7 - the Hong Kong Jockey Club Raceday - will be run by the Chinese Equestrian Association (CEA) and feature the final leg of the China Horse Racing Grand Prix series.

In 2014, Dubai Racing Club's meeting at the same Jinma racetrack just outside Chengdu was conducted on an exhibition basis, with all horses and personnel imported from Dubai, but the November meeting will feature horses, jockeys and trainers from the mainland.

We will help on the technical, but also the business side, like sponsorship, marketing and how to generate viable income streams

Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges

The new CEA-HKJC partnership, announced in Beijing yesterday, will continue the involvement of the Jockey Club with mainland authorities in a long-term target of laying the foundations of proper thoroughbred racing and breeding in China.

The club has assisted the China Sports Lottery with software and risk management in the past; it spent HK$1.2 billion building and organising equestrian events of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and the club has also played a major role in the Longines China Tour and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games equestrian events, which were staged on the site now being developed as the Conghua training centre.

READ MORE: Hong Kong Jockey Club to stage first race meeting in mainland China with party's backing - but no bets allowed

Jos Lansink of Belgium riding Cumano competes in the equestrian jumping individual final at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

The club's new executive director of its Racing Authority, Andrew Harding, has also been involved previously in his role as Asian Racing Federation (ARF) secretary in assisting Chinese authorities in developing a set of rules for racing, and will continue to work with them in his new position as China tries to build the necessary processes to administer racing as a sport.