Category: Horses in China

It’s been a year since Dubai real estate developer and horse racing operator Meydan said it was spending US$1.5 billion on a ‘horse city’ in Tianjin, the manufacturing hub to the east of Beijing. Never known for glamour – rather its reputation was made in making wind turbines, planes, paint and all kinds of car components – Tianjin is however a train ride from Beijing (30 minutes on the bullet train linking the two cities). But hardly a place for bloodstock expertise.

True, Tianjin had a racetrack a century ago, when Europeans settled the city, and there’s a lot of millionaire factory owners about to bet or back racehorses. But since gambling is illegal in China – and there’s no sign that’s going to change soon, proven by the fact that Beijing has an usused Hong Kong-owned race track closed when it pushed the envelope on trackside betting, I don’t know if there’s any reason to hope this Tianjin-Dubai deal will come through or be successful.

Anyway, read my article below:

The Dubai track: coming to Tianjin soon?

Horsing Around?

How real is prospect of ‘equestrian city’ promised by Emirates investors?

Big announcements are common fodder for Chinese business press: promises and pledges of huge investments, joint ventures, factories fill pages. Barely half the plans are realized, in Tianjin or elsewhere. Yet one of the most intriguing such good-news stories of late was surely the announcement by a Dubai-Chinese joint venture that an equestrian city will be built in Tianjin to breed thousands of thoroughbred horses and run them in local races. Lots more was suggested: tourism, equestrian sports excellence centre etc.

Tianjin Horse City is to be jointly established by Meydan City Corporation (Dubai,UAE), TAK Design Consultants (Malaysia) alongside Chinese partners Zhouji Jiye and Tianjin Farm Group. “The Group will help fulfil the gaps in the equestrian sports and horse culture industry economy in China, and merge the modern equine industry operations system in the coming 15 years.”

It sounds utterly incredulous, and whoever wrote the press release announcing the venture doesn’t seem to know much about the stuttering local equestrian scene which remains immature compared to equestrianism in Japan or the West, particularly since the cash-cow of horse sports, racing, remains grounded here due to a ban on gambling.

Yet the international backers of the project would seem to have some form in the business. Controlled by the government of the United Arab Emirates (of which Dubai is part) Meydan oversees a vast new race course in Dubai (with an obligatory 5-star hotel and “ten fine dining establishments” similar to what’s been promised in Tianjin). Yet the new Dubai project has been branded an “Ozymandias in the desert” by international media outlets as given the recent exodus of expatriates from debt-scarred Dubai.

Another white elephant in the making perhaps, Tianjin Horse City is nothing if not ambitious. When the earth movers move onto the site in Ninghe County, a towland of the city, they’ll be working a 5,000 mu site which will eventually host train facilities for 8,000 equestrian professionals and breed 1,000 high quality studhorses.

In addition to an equestrian college, feedstuff plant, breeding base, horse hospital, and quarantine centre, Tianjin Horse City will also include “five-star to seven-star” luxury hotels as well as offices, and apartments, all in a comparative backwater belt of Tianjin.

Horse City also promises to “hold international and domestic professional horse races, promote and impart equine culture and knowledge to youths, provide tourism services for the public, and protect the wellbeing and interests of equines.”

Phew! And everything will be up and running by 2015. In fairness there are some things in Tianjin’s favour. It has a track record as a testing ground for off-beat sports. The first baseball stadium post-1949 was built here – by the Dodgers boss no less. Tianjin is also the site of a new motor racing track being built by an operation connected to the Beijing-based Goldenport racetrack operator. And there’s talk of a new yacht club in the city.

Also in Tianjin’s favour is its proximity to Beijing which is far and away the centre of China’s equestrian scene, boasting more equestrian clubs than the rest of the country’s cities put together. Tianjin, where land is cheaper and more available, could be a good base to service such a scene.

But who needs 1,000 horses? True, imports of bloodstock are growing, but from a small base and are unlikely to amount to more than a couple of hundred horses a year. Moreover there is local capacity to supply racing steeds: the ill-fated Jockey Club in Beijing’s Tongzhou suburbs breeds 2,000 horses a year.

There are plenty in Meydan’s home turf who similarly question the project’s ability to provide 10,000 jobs and “pay hundreds of millions of taxes and profits to the State within five years” – not to mind franchise its operations across China. The announcement has caused some head-scratching in UAE financial circles, given the territory has had a torrid time of it lately dealing with debt built up from rash construction projects. An editorial writer on the popular local business portal Arabianbusiness.com noted that “few people in Tianjin or even in China seem to have heard anything about this Tianjin Horse City project until the recent announcement by Meydan through press releases.”

“Given that the accumulated total foreign investment in Ninghe to date is just around $290 million, such a huge inflow (of $4 billion over time) as announced by Meydan should not have gone unnoticed. So it’s very strange that nobody in China seems to have heard of this JV up till now.”

Arabiabusiness pertinently asks Meydan didn’t instead partner with the Royal Nanjing Jockey Club in Nanjing, which has apparently been trying to partner with Meydan to brand and develop its race course, currently being upgraded. “It seems strange that Meydan should even consider such a major equestrian based real estate project in such a small town when it has been invited to participate in much better cities with an already licensed race course operator.”

In true Leninist style the Horse City management has prepared two five year plans, the first spanning five years and eight months from May 2010 to December 2015. By the end of 2011, the equestrian college, studhorse base and feedstuff plant will be completed and put into trial operations. By the end of 2012, the horse trading centre, hotel, clubhouse, shopping centre, and entertainment centre will be completed and by the end of the following year offices and living facilities will be completed.

By 2014, national standard club events, national equestrian club and national equestrian park franchises will be developed. The second five-year plan spans from January 2016 to December 2020, which will focus “on the listing of the Company and cohesion with the international horse industry.”

Though their feasibility is questionable there are some admirable aspects to the project, notably its educational offering. Up and running in 2012 with 1,000 students and 50 teachers, the US$1.4 billion Hua Zhi Jie International Equestrian College will be jointly established with a local (unnamed) agricultural university, and a sports university to train “qualified professionals as future equestrians to support the horse industry”. Graduates will include vets and “horse breakers.”

If it does happen, the college will provide some first for China: a horse hospital, quarantine centre and horse feedstuff plant. But does China needs a stud farm with “1,000 different blood horses, most of which will be derived from good stud horses in the world.” Seeing perhaps too much of the commercial aspects the backers say: “highly ranked imported blood horse may sell at RMB1-10 million or more.”

Other promises of the project are somewhat ethereal, if laudible. The 1,000 horses will produce about 10 tons of manure, enough for a biomass pool to generate methane for daily cooking, heating and lighting as well as fertilizer for local land. Production at the project’s feed factory will combine imported formulas and equipment but some 50% export of output will be exported. Given the difficulties of china’s existing equestrian clubs in sourcing quality hay (given China’s lack of arable land and problems of overgrazing in grass belts like Inner Mongolia) and feed suitable for horses the projection sounds particularly optimistic.

Horse City is also being optimistic in predicting its horse auction house will have an initial trade volume of 700 horses a year, “with an annual increase of 10%, up to 1,050 horses a year in the fifth year.” More astounding though is a plan to develop 500 standard equestrian clubs and 500 equestrian parks, “with 25,000 employees and 50,000 studhorses, with a production value of RMB30-50 billion.”

Another Horse City pledge is the establishment of the China Equestrian Professional League. “In particular, in the first year, the company will standardize various equestrian matches, train various talents, and enhance the level of equestrian sport and the quality of horses in China.” Research on “equestrian standards” apparently already commenced in May this year.

Yet while such ventures may do much for the standardization for the club and competition scene here the suggested “mass appeal” for equestrian sports which Horse City promises to generate seems unlikely any time soon given the country has only a patchy series of local equestrian competitions and scant sponsorship of same.

Most intriguing of all is what the project planners have to say on horse racing, which would seem vital to any project of this scale. Intriguingly while the project promises racing the press releases so far note the “commencement of the construction of a horse racing field will depend on the decision of the State on commercial horse racing.” “The Group though in the meantime “will pay attention to and make proposals on the policy of the State in respect of commercial horse racing, seek the support of the State and local governments.”

Others have tried, and a Wuhan already hosts a major Hong Kong-invested racetrack with jockey training centre, which has been described in local media as the country’s test bed for legalized racing-for-betting. There have been no announcements that Wuhan is making much progress in persuading local powers that be. So it’s difficult to see how Tianjin would get the green light any faster. But without racing there seems less chance of success for a five-star to seven-star international hotel with a capacity for 3,600 guests.

I stand open to correction, and wait to be convinced by events, but so far this whole project smells somewhat of equine manure. Given Dubai is no longer as flush with cash as it used to be there will clearly be consequences if things don’t work out for Meydan in Tianjin. That Arabianbusiness.com editorial puts it bluntly. “Meydan, being part of a Sovereign Fund, has both the business and moral obligation to seriously achieve commercial viability for all of its activities be it foreign or domestic if it wants to establish the credibility that Dubai as a whole lost during the recent financial crisis.”

I was happy the other day to read one of the few efforts by a foreign trade body to publish something useful and in English about the Chinese equestrian scene. ‘China Horse Industry Overview’ is posted on its website by the Kentucky China Trade Centre, which I first encountered at the Equestrian China expo last autumn where it was promoting the southern US state, which will host the World Equestrian Games later this year.

At over 30 pages the report usefully details hybrid Chinese breeds like the Sanhe and Yili and the breeding centers where you can find them. I also runs through the race tracks around the country (surprisingly many) and distinguishes between the support at provincial government level for horse racing and the lingering suspicion at national policymaking level of on-track gambling which has kept racing as we know it in Hong Kong/UK/USA in the starter box. It is a bit frustrating though to read that the government forbids racing – I had assumed the only thing that’s forbidden is racing for gambling.

Anyway, it’s well worth a read and will be of use to US horse breeders seeking to sell bloodstock here.

It’s funny, a week after I wrote an article about the local club scene for the same paper this week there’s a piece in the Global Times, business section, on a‘booming’ local equestrian scene. I was interested to note the focus on the Yanjiao equestrian centre, a newish facility in an unlikely setting, an industrial estate way out east of the city. While straying confusingly from equestrian centres to racing (and reprising the will-they-won’t-they-allow-gambling issue) the article does re-emphasise how much of an equestrian scene Beijing has compared to Shanghai – 65 riding clubs (the quality of some of them is questionable) compared to less than 20 in Shanghai, a city consider wealthier and more cosmopolitan. I’ll shortly share some of the comments I’ve been getting regarding standards at local equestrian centres.

There’s been a bunch of articles in the Chinese press lately about equestrianism in Beijing. One that caught my eye in particular is a piece in the China Daily about the closure of local equestrian clubs due to real estate expansion. District governments across the city compulsorily purchase land (which technically all belongs to the ‘people’ and can only be rented for 70 year periods – if the government doesn’t want it) which they sell to real estate developers who build yet more apartment or villa complexes for ever-wealthy locals and speculators playing the Chinese frothy property market.

Owner of the DD Club, Liu Di at his soon-to-disappear riding club. photo courtesy China Daily

Two things to note: I never came across the DD Horse Farm, which the article locates in Dongba, near the Sunhe River. The photo that accompanies the article shows the owner looking into what looks like a piece of fenced-off scrubland with a rough track around the edges. I’m afraid the DD is one of so many dodgy ‘equestrian clubs’ that have sprung up on bits of land around Beijing. These are quick-buck merchants with little knowledge of horse welfare. Most interesting quote in the piece though is from Li Ning, who runs the nearby Yingchen International Riding Club: he says that soon all clubs within the city’s sixth ring road will have to move to the “countryside.” That means a lot of fine establishments like Equuleus – which says it’s staying put – will have wasted expensive refurbishments.

We’re looking forward to a new season starting up on Beijing’s polo grounds.

Here’s an article I wrote on the Autumn competition at the Sunny Time polo club about 90 minutes drive north of the city. http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/metro-beijing/community/events/2009-10/478586.html

I’ve gotten emails from around the world about that article – mostly from overseas polo players, investors seeking opportunities in China. I’ve noticed however that the long-promised Reignwood polo club still hasn’t opened here, more than a year after it’s scheduled opening. The club was to be run by the Australian-Chinese management that also runs the Nine Dragons Polo club south of Shanghai. Read my earlier blog posting of that facility.

I had never heard of horse ball till I came accross a Hong Kong-born horse lover trying to spread the game in Beijing. Few Beijingers know what horseball is but fewer know Beijing has a horseball club. It does, and the Shunyi-based Horseball China team has just signed a deal with one of the China’s Internet portals to screen its competitions live in 2010.

Club founder/trainer/player Harry Tse is a one man force of enthusiasm in China for the polo-like game (players wear similar gear) which emerged in 1930s France, the brainchild of a Frenchman who wanted to combine his passion for horses and rugby. Teams of four horsemen play horseball, trying to bounce and scoop a ball from the ground, supervised by two referees.

The city’s horse ballers have match practice every weekend at its purpose-built outdoor arena in Shunyi – “even in winter,” says Tse, who before discovering horseball used to visit the grasslands outside Beijing every weekend for some horsing about.

A Hong Kong-born IT executive got into horse ball while touring Europe in 2007, Tse currently pays the Chinese players’ wages, but “teams will eventually be sold to sponsors” to pay the bills. There are other ambitions: “We plan to have experienced European horseball players coming to perform in the future.”

When not tending to their own stable, the club’s staff perform in local equestrian competitions, such as a recent endurance race in Beijing. Tse says the plan is to groom more teams locally in China, “approximately 12 teams.” Horseball is in its early days in Asia, explains Tse but he happily points to fellow enthusiasts in Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

There’s good news surely for horsey types like Tse in increased recognition afforded their sport. Established in 1999, the International Federation of Horseball (FIHB) runs an annual European Cup and a World Cup every year. The very discerning FEI meanwhile has included the game among its ten recognized disciplines.

Tse was the first Asian to successfully obtain the UKCC (Coaching Certificate of UK) qualification in horse ball. He’s now the trainer of the Chinese national team and director of Horseball Commission of Chinese Equestrian Association. He’s even the Asian Representative at the FIHB.

Riders have to learn similar tackling and shooting skills but horseball, says Tse, is more accessible than polo. Any sized horse will do (since unlike polo you’re not restricted by a bat) is restricted by the length of its bat. Since the arena is much smaller than in polo, each player needs only one horse – polo players require a string of steeds for a game, since each is quickly exhausted. Also, unlike polo, a general purpose saddle will do a horse ball player. Any old horse and saddle of course still costs a relative fortune to the average Beijinger. Still horse ball is a good game to watch, and given Tse’s enthusiasm, has a future in China.

For anyone interested in China and horses there’s hilarious reading on www.thelonghorseride.com. That’s the site set up by Megan Lewis, a Welshwoman riding between Beijing and London. When I met her in Beijing a few months ago Megan was about to go back for a winter break on her farm in Wales. She’ll be back in April to pick up the journey where she left off, at the end of the Great Wall in %. Lewis plans to arrive in Kazakhstan by summer. There she’ll saddle a new team of horses: bureaucracy and customs wouldn’t allow her take the Chinese steeds over. Apart from hilarious and frustrating run ins with local authorities (villagers she’s met along the way from Beijing are invariably curious and very helpful) Lewis has gleaned great knowledge about local breeds. I hadn’t for example known much about the Shanda, a stocky local breed which Lewis discovered on an sprawling breeding base in obscure Guangxi province which formerly bred horses for the army. China also has the Mongolian pony breed, and the Yili, a slightly taller steed from the China-Kazakh borderlands.

The next China Equestrian Expo/China Horse Fair is coming up: October 24, 25.

This year UK-based exhibition company Tarsus will mount the show, at Beijing’s International Exhibition centre – the one next to the National Stadium/Bird’s Nest.

E-flyers and sms alerts have already been sent, which suggests a new level of professionalism in the 2009 edition of the show. It will be interesting to see who’s got the budget to travel. It will also be interesting to see what kind of numbers and shape the myriad local exhibitors/manufacturers of horse tack and rider wear will appear in. These firms are usually very export-dependent and will surely have been among the small and medium manufacturing firms which took a hammering in the past year as exports to economically depressed Western countries tumble. One imagines equestrian clubs are badly affected as consumers cut spending and non-essentials. But equestrian clubs in China have continued to multiply and more established clubs are expanding. Will locals – clubs as well as tack makers – take up the space likely to be left empty by European equestrian firms missing this year’s show? Or will the Europeans merely show up in ever greater numbers as they seek sales elsewhere for their horses and equestrian equipment?

One definite attendee will be the US Livestock Genetics Export (USLGE) Corp, which will be showcasing American Quarter Horse and Appaloosa breeding to Chinese visitors. Among those, according to Tarsus, will be local polo club Reignwood Pine Valley, seeking veterinary and nutrition products and services, says general manager Xu Ying Jie. A local equestrian club quoted by Tarsus in its press release, the Yan Long is a new one to me but I look forward to learning more about it soon.

See more at www.chinahorsefair.com.cn