PROMINENTLY displayed in the centre of the Beijing Country Horse Racing Track is a billboard proclaiming: ''Uphold the central government's order on the strict prohibition of gambling''.
This is rather odd, because less than 100 metres away that is precisely what hundreds of race-goers who converge on the track every Sunday afternoon are doing.
They do not call it gambling of course - it is an ''equestrian intelligence test''.
There is even an electronic bulletin board displaying the odds of the horses as the betting changes.
The price of an ''intelligence test'' ticket is five yuan.
That the track's owners can get away with such a thinly disguised infraction of the law is testimony to the flexibility of China's laws and government directives.