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The China Horse Club isn’t something you hear about often. Interesting article by Paul Haigh here.
From the article:
“… they no doubt got to wondering why on earth John Magnier and Coolmore, not renowned for their profligacy or unwisdom, had offered a share in a potential champion to Teo Ah Khing and an organization, the China Horse Club, hardly anyone else, in Britain and Ireland anyway, had ever heard of.
The answer to that has to be guesswork to some extent because Magnier doesn’t normally feel any compulsion to explain his business decisions.”Surely it’s because Coolmore has been in a consultancy partnership with the Chinese government since early 2012. The Tianjin Equine Culture City is a racing and breeding facility costing $2 billion near China’s fourth biggest city.
Over four years ago Magnier was quite open about Coolmore’s involvement, saying: “We are delighted to be one of the first Irish companies to kick-start this partnership and represent Ireland’s hugely successful horse breeding and racing industries.”Even a man as rich as he, would be thinking seriously about a slice of $2 billion as a starting point in a country which has the world’s second biggest economy, most billionaires and largest population. Huge potential for horse racing and breeding companies.
As well as the business angle, the long term aim vis a vis Mongolian grasslands and racing/breeding is really interesting. In returning to one of the primary horse rearing areas of the world, this endeavour has shades of Godolphin, where a key motivation has always been to reclaim the TB for Arab cultures. But this is no Dubai. Rather, the turn to Mongolia (i.e involvement of a third country) is similar to many other areas of Chinese business investment. There is every sign here that TB globalisation is now seeing what elsewhere is called ‘the China Factor’ – in which case this is an arrival that will be as profound for the TB industry as that of Godolphin.
HKJC CEO ahead of the HK season opening next Sunday, as reported by SCMP:
>> “We will need to manage our programming so that field sizes do not suffer with the extra meetings, as our current horse population cannot be increased, but that is where Conghua will come in during the third quarter of 2018,” Engelbrecht-Bresges said.
“I cannot overstate the importance of the Conghua centre we are building in China – our future growth and development depends on it. Sha Tin is almost 40 years old – its facilities have been at maximum capacity and we have tried unsuccessfully for 20 years to acquire more space in Hong Kong. Parts of Sha Tin need to be decommissioned in the near future, and there is serious refurbishment required for the rest of it which would cause major disruption if we have no alternative.
“When Conghua opens, we will be able to increase our horse population by up to 150 horses, sufficient to use our additional meetings properly, and we will cut down long current waiting times for ownership permits. In addition, Conghua will play an important part in the advancement of a racing future in China, in training participants for that future and it will position the club to take advantage of any policy changes in China regarding racing.” <<
the issues with getting racing into mainland China bear repeating:
Interesting thread.
For those who might be interested:
An earlier, more detailed, piece by Paul Haigh that may be of interest:& another that gives a real sense of the trajectory – a Q&A with Michael Wallace
http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/category/q-a/that Paul Haigh link has him writing:
>> Perhaps the recent cancellation of the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s projected meeting at Chengdu will be seen as a setback. But, if it was a setback for anyone, it was a setback for the HKJC; and in any case there is no reason to suppose that the equine flu outbreak that was the official cause of that cancellation was anything but the real reason. <<
in fact there was a bit more than that to that Chengdu meeting (the HKJC was invited to be involved by the Chinese Equestrian Association – an arm of the State General Administration of Sport):
and its cancellation:
http://corporate.hkjc.com/corporate/corporate-news/english/2015-11/news_2015110301752.aspx
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