Hong Kong Season Over; Expansion Plans Just Starting

The Hong Kong Jockey Club has closed the books on a season that produced record results despite unprecedented challenges. Yet it remains firmly fixed on a future to not only restore the pre-pandemic status quo but take Hong Kong racing to uncharted heights.

The 2021-22 campaign that ended July 16 was beset, for the second straight term, by rolling waves of pandemic-related, government-imposed restrictions on import, transportation, quarantine, and fans' attendance at Sha Tin and Happy Valley racecourses. For long periods, racing was conducted before empty stands, with even owners barred from attendance and off-track wagering facilities shuttered.

Through a combination of popular demand for wagering on the horses and a huge expansion of inbound simulcasting, the season ended with record turnover and an increase in the massive tax benefit to the Hong Kong government.

The 88 meetings at the two tracks offered fans 836 races and 281 overseas simulcasts. Turnover of HK$140 billion (US$17.8 billion) represented a 3% increase over 2020-21. The betting duty was HK$14.1 billion (US$1.8 billion), up 2.8% from the previous season.

Total turnover for the season's final day at Sha Tin, with attendance still limited by quarantine rules, was HK$2.039 billion, or about US$260 million.

For context, Equibase reported Saratoga Race Course handle on the same date at $5.7 million on track and $31.3 million in interstate wagering, and Monmouth Park tallying $346,484 and $3.8 million, respectively.

The international aspect of its program is vital to the HKJC and, utilizing a "bubble" approach, the club was able to maintain a strong international presence for December's Longines Hong Kong International Races. Only in April did a new wave of COVID and newly tightened restrictions force the three group 1 races of FWD Champions Day to be run with only local horses.

For all that, and except for a horrible accident that caused the deaths of two horses in the Longines Hong Kong Sprint (G1), the season was an artistic success.

Golden Sixty earned a second Horse of the Year title, overcoming a midseason soft patch to win four races, among them the Longines Hong Kong Mile (G1) for the second straight year and the FWD Champions Mile (G1). The jockeys' championship battle, an important issue for local punters as well as for the participants, was hotly contested throughout the term, with Zac Purton finally seeing off rival Joao Moreira on the final day of competition, sealing his fifth crown.

"We are gratified once more by the collective discipline and togetherness of all participants—trainers, jockeys, owners, employees, and customers—which has allowed us to continue showcasing Hong Kong's most popular sport to the world," said HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges.

"It remains our abiding ambition that, as soon as possible, we are able to return to normality and we can welcome back all of our customers to Sha Tin and Happy Valley."

Noble as it is, that's far from the only "abiding ambition" of the HKJC for the remainder of this decade.

Looking forward from the trials and tribulations of two seasons beset by both the pandemic and civic unrest, the Club has massive plans that will transform racing in its jurisdiction, move regular competition onto the Chinese mainland, and position the HKJC for whatever future the government decides for the sport nationwide.

"We are looking forward to seeing a lot of exciting milestones from now until 2030," Engelbrecht-Bresges said.

In the short term, purses have been hiked to a record HK$1.62 billion for the 2022-23 season, including for December's group 1 quartet that will offer total purses of HK$110 million.

"This is all necessary to keep Hong Kong in the front rank of world racing and provide the best quality for our fans and customers," the CEO said.

To grasp the Club's big plans, the industry looks some 3 1/2 hours by road north across the Chinese border to Conghua Racecourse, the site of the HKJC's state-of-the-art facility that opened as a training center in 2018. Already a key element in the Club's operations, the HKJC has in place intergovernmental agreements to open the CRC for regular race programs starting in 2025, and a major expansion program of the facility is underway to accommodate live racing.

"We will be entering the next important phases of the Conghua Racecourse development, including construction of a grandstand, stabling capacity for an extra 400 horses, and additional state-of-the-art training and rehabilitation facilities," Engelbrecht-Bresges said, noting "the introduction of regular race meetings rostered in CRC in 2025-26, when we will establish a triangle of racing across our three racecourses at Sha Tin, Happy Valley, and Conghua."

That expansion will call for more horses, more trainers qualified to operate across the venues, and an adjustment in attitude on the part of owners, administrators, governments, and fans. The effects will be felt worldwide, and the HKJC is preparing for all that.

Without much fanfare, the HKJC took over funding more than a year ago of South African efforts to ease onerous export quarantine protocols. If successful after a European Union audit slated for October, that will facilitate sourcing of horses from that nation to help meet Hong Kong's needs. The Club also announced this year it will ease mandatory retirement rules to allow successful trainers to stay on past the current age limit of 65.

The HKJC for years has purchased 2-year-olds at major sales around the world, imported them to Hong Kong, and auctioned them to eager members. In recent years, Club members have become more active in private purchases.

Last week, Juddmonte Farms homebred Thesis, winner of the Britannia Stakes at Royal Ascot, was sold to Hong Kong interests, with co-trainer Harry Charlton noting to the Racing Post that the Hong Kong "spending power is hard to contend with."

Among other preparations for the future, Conghua Racecourse already has more than three years' investment in training personnel to support racing, from stable hands to veterinarians, and the Club has taken a hand in regularizing the Chinese stud book.

Much of the future for Hong Kong racing, of course, depends on the continuing course of the COVID pandemic and the government's "zero tolerance" policy toward it. And the prospects for racing at Conghua, with the so-far elusive hope of wagering on mainland races, remain at the mercy of the national and local bureaucracies.

But there's no doubt that within years, enough change will be in place to make Hong Kong racing almost unrecognizable by today's standards—a prospect that brings pause to some of its participants.

"I think a lot is going to change in Hong Kong in the next five years," Purton told Asian Racing Report's David Morgan as he battled Moreira for the riding title, "and I doubt either of us will be here five years from now.

"Hong Kong is resilient. It always bounces back and it's a strong racing jurisdiction with high turnover on the tote and lucrative prize money. I think, ultimately, it will stay the same at its core.

"It's going to have a different feel to it, though."