After nearly three years of lockdown and quarantine due to the pandemic, the Hong Kong Jockey Club is making a comeback.
After daily efforts for the past few years, HKJC has been working hard to keep racing, HKJC has used some creative interactions with government health officials to continue what has stopped in the past few years. Ambitious plans for the future. The Covid measures, while disruptive, have actually provided an opportunity for HKJC to redefine its goals and shift its focus to its customers to better meet the new expectations of its fans. racing grave.
CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said that although the pandemic has delayed expansion plans by a year or two, the HKJC still expects a new track in mainland China, rebuilding the stables at base in Hong Kong and redesigned customer bases everywhere. -an hour-long interview during the festivities surrounding the December 11 Hong Kong Longines International Race.
The CEO said that, also on the radar, is developing a large international horse quarantine station on land and nurturing the livestock industry in China to support increased races. And, international races can begin to prepare for the standardization of betting and staking protocols as HKJC’s World Pool initiative continues to grow.
The restrictions imposed by the pandemic at the start of 2020 were meaningfully relaxed just in time to allow approximately 12,000 fans to attend the International Horseracing Challenge on December 7 at Happy Valley Racecourse and about 45,000 people returned to Sha Tin for HKIR on 11 December.
But in order to make these strides, the Club first had to go through three difficult years, most of which had little or even no fans in the stands and the daily struggle to keep going. race while ensuring the safety of essential workers. Issues include how to organize daily checks and track up to 1,500 employees and how to move horses weekly between the HKJC Conghau training center on the mainland and the tracks in Hong Kong — across the border in terms of facilities. version has been closed.
The key to staying in the race, said Engelbrecht-Bresges, is to work with the government, which has imposed lockdowns on many other sectors of the Hong Kong economy but recognizes the special importance of the fight. race for this area. Chan Kwok-ki, chief managing secretary of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, attended the HKIR gala and made the case.
“Hong Kong Jockey Club has successfully hosted this flagship event over the years,” said the secretary. “This not only echoes our local saying that horse racing goes on as usual as a symbol of prosperity, but also demonstrates to the world Hong Kong’s status as a global equestrian hub. bridge.”
HKJC President Michael Lee replied, “Thanks to the trust you have placed in the Club, Hong Kong has weathered the pandemic. In doing so, it has become a symbol to the world of resilience and spirit. dare of our city.”
It’s not easy.
“We’ve managed this very scientifically, says Engelbrecht-Bresges, “because when you keep racing you have to be very mindful that there is a health risk. … The most difficult time is when we have to convince the government that what we do is not based on greed to continue, but that what we do is responsible.
“And we can do this. And decisions—we meet every night at 10:00, 12:00, 2:00. We’ve checked and we’ve written down the entire test schedule. This at its peak we were testing 1,500 people a day.”
The effort paid off when the race was allowed to continue during the lockdown that has paralyzed other parts of Hong Kong society. But there were few, if any, fans in the stands, leading to entirely new routines and expectations. Even that big change in the racing experience could turn out to be an advantage, says Engelbrecht-Bresges.
“We have about 2.2 million people on the (staking) account,” he said. “But the problem is that some of them forgot the account number. So we reactivated about 300,000 accounts where people forgot the account number.”
Next problem: Bank transfers took 2 and a half days, severely limiting the utility of account staking. So HKJC signed up with a system that offers instant money transfers, transferring 1.1 million accounts to that platform.
Now, Engelbrecht-Bresges says, “We were the biggest merchant using the system. So that certainly helped us.”
Off-track facilities, which pre-Covid had an average of about 380,000 race day attendees, were also limited for much of the quarantine period and the Club faced the problem that their customers could not afford it. Cryptocurrency withdrawals have no way to get cash out of their account. Selective reopenings in areas with low infection rates have created long lines at those offices. So, with government approval, routes were opened just to withdraw money from the account.
“What we did then, we had a website where you could open a betting account or where you could activate your account if you forgot your number,” the CEO said. “Every crisis is an opportunity. And this is customer service. We have people who train customers who aren’t smartphone savvy on how to use their smartphones.”
The Covid outage also provides time to reset plans for many of the club’s projects and to respond to what will inevitably be changes in customer behavior after nearly three years without the origin of the action. The goal is to draw customers back to the track and OTB by providing an experience beyond the traditional horse racing environment.
“Our non-tracking betting centers we move more to experience centers,” said Engelbrecht-Bresges, noting efforts to attract players, Engelbrecht-Bresges said. young. “They’re completely different… We now have several OTBs that are combined with a typical Hong Kong-style coffee shop, where you can have a bite for lunch, breakfast or dinner. So it’s not more of a transaction hub than an experience hub, and that works great.
“It’s still an experiment,” he said, although early data shows that attendees at new-style OTBs are more likely to open and use accounts than those who frequent older facilities. . And, recognizing that on-time attendance remains key to expanding the fan base, changes will also come to Sha Tin and Happy Valley.
“We will be transforming many of our core, transactional betting spaces into entertainment and relaxation, and customers who not only want to place bets but also view racing as an experience,” he said. .
world swimming pool
HKJC is the mastermind and key player of World Pools, which aggregates betting on some of the biggest events on the global calendar. While the benefits of large, upcoming betting pools are obvious to bettors, they can also be lucrative for races, Engelbrecht-Bresges said, citing the increased revenue at Royal Ascot from HK$619 million a year before the establishment of World Pool, to HK. $1.76 million this year. That has generated significant new revenue for Ascot itself, he said.
He acknowledged expanding the World Pool would require a common platform for racing data and bets as well as racing rules, which would make it difficult for some jurisdictions with systems and mechanics. diverse management. Coordinating the rules regarding the use of the whip and the enforcement of those rules has been a particularly thorny issue.
“If you’re part of the World Pool, that’s going to be a requirement,” he said.
Racing in Mainland China
Shortly before the Covid lockdown, HKJC reached an agreement with local and national governments to expand its massive, state-of-the-art training center in Conghua, about a 4-hour drive north of Hong Kong. north, to host four races every year. The expansion will include the construction of an eco-friendly grandstand that can accommodate 10,000-12,000 fans. The entire project is seen as a scalable test, but the start date has been pushed back from 2025 to 2026.
Adding races at Conghua would require an expansion of the HKJC’s horse population, and Engelbrecht-Bresges hopes the new source of horses can come from more diverse jurisdictions.
Races at Conghua can encourage the development of China’s nascent livestock industry, he said, as those races will bring horses to international rankings. And the construction of another new project, an international quarantine station, aligns with another goal of the HKJC by 2030.
“If you have horses raised in China, if they are good enough, they can pass this quarantine station, gain health status and run in Hong Kong,” and potentially move to other areas. other legal. He said there are no plans to bet at Conghua. When asked if Hong Kong residents can expect to bet on Conghua races, he was quick to say: “I won’t speculate on that.”
HE
Engelbrecht-Bresges, head of several international and regional racing organizations, including the International Federation of Equestrian Organizations, said the new US regulator, the Safety and Integrity Authority horse racing, has reached out to world groups to outline his plans. He noted legal challenges are currently delaying implementation.
“I have no influence in the US courts,” he said with a laugh. “But personally I think it would be a great loss for international races if HISA is not established.”
