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Conghua, world betting pools and Chris Waller were some of the world-wide topics that Winfreid Engelbrecht-Bresges, Hong Kong Jockey Club Chief Executive Officer, discussed last week at Sha Tin before the Club’s FWD Champion’s Day on Sunday.

On March 23rd the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) conducted the first Exhibition Raceday at their Conghau Racecourse with five races with full Hong Kong status, prize money and wins counting towards premierships.
 

The racecourse, a HK$3.7 billion development, was opened ahead of this racing season with training in full swing and ahead of the HKJC’s schedule. It was quickly apparent that the Conghua track was producing winners of races at Sha Tin and Happy Valley and further trainers will commence utilising stables there before the 2019/20 season.

The March 23rd meeting was an opportunity to demonstrate to the various government agencies through the Greater Bay Area what the sport of racing can bring to the region. This is not about wagering, but the development of a much wider equine community for tourism, employment, equine events for all horse disciplines as well as the obvious growth of training for Hong Kong’s racing venues.

In a massive logistical exercise the HKJC transported every aspect of running a full race meeting the 200km from Hong Kong to Conghau and set out before invited guests and some 3000 locals what the sport of horse racing was about, many of whom had never witnessed the sport previously.

Richard Gibson’s Nordic Warrior under Matthew Chadwick won the opening race, the HK$2m, Hong Kong Jockey Club Trophy (1200m), history was created and the racing future of Conghua was underway.
 

“For us it was very important as an organisation to demonstrate that we can replicate what we do here in a different environment and we ticked all the boxes,” said Engelbrecht-Bresges.

“It was even more important that other people see that we tick the boxes and this gave us the political endorsement from the Hong Kong government with the Chief Executive (Mrs Carrie Lam) there and that they fully endorsed it, that we had the Guangdong Government fully endorse it, Guangzhou and the Hong Kong Macau Affairs Office from Beijing with the Director who was there, who fully endorses it, the Liaison Office under the Greater Bay Area framework, that this definitely give us a great platform to develop,” he said.

The political importance of the endorsements is emphasised by Conghua developing as the centre of an equine region for China being one of the first major projects for the Greater Bay Area.

Moving forward Engelbrecht-Bresges said that the Club was already planning the next meeting at Conghua Racecourse.

“We are likely to have the next meeting in November. We want to shift from March because the weather over November gives a much higher probability of good weather. We had to do it in that time in March as we did not want to do it immediately after the opening. And you need approval processes, so we are now comfortable that we can do this in November,” he explained.

“We are aiming to expand it, and how we will expand it, and we are aiming to have a regular feature of a race meeting in November and then if you look at 2020 we can do it on an even bigger scale. But we will do it step by step.

“It was an amazing achievement as pulling this off was not that easy,” he said.

With Royal Ascot only a month away the HKJC and Ascot Racecourse are working towards the first meeting for a tote world pool with Hong Kong as the Hub.

“Everything seems moving to plan and this is probably another milestone,” he said.

Engelbrecht-Bresges said that with the Jockey Club having the technology and liquidity for the pools, the Royal Ascot meeting could well be the forerunner for further world pools on major meetings.

“Hong Kong has a unique opportunity to follow this development,” he said.

It is not a stretch to see a single Australian tote pool co-mingling into Hong Kong’s pool for major meetings, outside of Japan for the moment, that only a few years ago were energised by the prospect of international runners.

Although Engelbrecht-Bresges said global pooling will take time to develop, it will surely become as ‘normal’ as the travel of international horses, jockeys, trainers and connections.

Engelbrecht-Bresges attended Randwick’s Longine Queen Elizabeth Stakes meeting on April 13th as part of a series of meetings of international racing authorities.

“I personally think it was a very, very interesting race meeting and I saw Winx which was definitely great to witness history.  I think it is great that she has her farewell in the deserved manner with a win,” he said.

“It is always good to see Australian racing at its best and what is even more fun is when you know that a horse like Classique Legend has a high probability of being in Hong Kong after certain other races.”

The Les Bridge trained Classique Legend, a three-year-old gelding by Not A Single Doubt owned by Hong Kong connections, impressively won the Group 2 Arrowfield 3YO Sprint over 1200m.

While in Sydney Engelbrecht-Bresges had time for a conversation with Sydney’s leading trainer Chris Waller who signed off the Randwick raceday with his champion mare Winx retiring after her final win in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

There were recent rumours about Waller shifting to Sha Tin to train, but Engelbrecht-Bresges was able to dispel these.

“I have not heard about it, we have not had discussions and we are looking at the moment at a trainer in the Northern Hemisphere,” he said.

“There is always speculation, he is a fantastic trainer and I would think that every racing jurisdiction in the world would be happy to see him as a trainer. But he has a huge operation and maybe if you have a horse like Winx that leads to discussion on what you want to do next.

“I cannot and will not respond to speculation, but he a great trainer and I enjoy talking to him as he is one of the most interesting people from a trainer perspective from around the world who is extremely thoughtful. He is really very strategic in what he does and it is always great to talk to top industry people.

“I had a long discussion with him before the Messara honouring (Longines award to John Messara) about the general racing industry, but not about specifics,” he said.

Waller remains Sydney’s leading trainer and Hong Kong remains racing’s leading developer in the world of globalisation of industry wagering flows and the thoughtful construction of another equine jurisdiction in the Greater Bay Area.

There is no need for a Silk Road approach here, the HKJC transporters are humming nearly daily to and from Conghua with much activity to follow.