Horse racing Hong Kong-style still a long way off for mainland China

Considering there is no horse racing as we know it on the mainland, the Hong Kong Jockey Club has good form there, to use racing parlance.

It seems to have borne fruit with the announcement of strategic cooperation with the Chinese Equestrian Association - an arm of the State General Administration of Sport - to lay the foundations for a future racing industry.

The birth of the joint enterprise comes ahead of a collaborative race meeting on November 7, featuring the final leg of the China Horse Racing Grand Prix at the Jinma track in Wenjiang, just outside Chengdu in Sichuan province.

The Jockey Club has been heavily involved with prestige mainland equine affairs, including spending HK$1.2 billion on facilities and organisation of equestrian events of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a major role in the Longines China show-jumping tour and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games equestrian events, held on the site now being developed as the HKJC Conghua Training Centre near Guangzhou.

The partnership and the November 7 race meeting could prove a historic turning point in establishing the sport on the mainland.