(CN - BEIJING) Horse Racing

[Guest guest]

South China Morning Post

http://www.scmp.com/

Wednesday November 9 2005

 

Beijing shows how racing dies without betting

 

by Alan Aiken

 

Racing in Beijing has shut down altogether after limping on badly for

a year with the wounds of police crackdowns on 'guessing games'

gambling to which blind eyes were once turned.

 

A year ago, the Beijing Tongshun Jockey Club was informed that it

could race but not operate any of the minor gambling which had gone

on for several years.

 

The club recessed early for the winter then returned but in a

neutered form, with a reduced racing programme and on a sport-only

basis.

 

Now, contrary to some Hong Kong newspaper reports as recently as two

weeks ago - which vaguely quoted unidentified overseas racing

websites as reporting that the Beijing Jockey Club had been granted a

12-month betting licence by the government - that particular dream

has died.

 

Perhaps those involved would prefer to regard it as a coma, or, more

pleasantly, as an Austin Powers-style cryogenic state from which it

will awake with its mojo intact and working better than ever.

 

Participants have been told their presence is not required for the

next 18 to 24 months, but that everything will kick off again at some

future time and there will be jobs for everyone.

 

Not surprisingly, after more than six years of winks and nods that

open betting is just around the corner and everyone would be rolling

in money, that offer is being regarded with the suspicion it so

richly deserves.

 

Even if it were true, two years of twiddling your thumbs is never a

good career move.

 

So the international band of trainers and other racing personnel at

Beijing are in the act of fleeing the capital for greener pastures.

 

The fate of the hundreds of horses is not quite as clear, but they'll

hardly be of much use for racing after two years of holidays.

 

Wealthy businessman Y. P. Cheng, an active player in Macau racing,

was rumoured to have sunk as much as US$100 million into building the

track and facilities and providing the horses and people necessary to

undertake racing - a fine bet if it all came through and proper

gambling started. But, however deep your pockets, the day arrives

when the rot has to stop.

 

The period of 18 to 24 months may be significant. There was always

great optimism within Beijing racing that the central government

would open legal horse racing betting in the run-up to the Olympics

as some sort of sporting-related gesture, though that view might

eventually be consigned to the same large rubbish bin as all the

other optimistic views.

 

Let it stand as a little reminder to all those racing administrators

in Hong Kong and around the world - and there are surprisingly many -

that racing, the sport and entertainment business as some like to

call it, doesn't go on without gambling.

 

Look after that part and the rest will follow - good horses, high-

quality jockeys and trainers and other staff will flock to a

successful gambling product just as quickly as they will flee one

which exists only for the sport of the thing.

 

So what business are we really in?