Longines Hong Kong horse show could become centre of Asian equestrian boom, organiser says
Three-day event wraps up with Roger-Yves Bost winning Longines Grand Prix and officials promising bigger and better things to come
The Longines Hong Kong International Horse Show could inspire an Asian equestrian revolution, according to one of the architects of this year’s enhanced second edition.
A victory for Roger-Yves Bost on Ballerine du Vilpion in the blue-riband Longines Grand Prix wrapped up the three-day AsiaWorld-Expo event on Sunday.
Simon Brooks-Ward, the chairman of co-organisers HPower Group, said the show had “moved on in terms of quality of riders and content” but that “next year we want to elevate all that again … and fill every seat to create an atmosphere of success”.
“It’s not a stagnant product, and we’re already looking at how we improve,” Brooks-Ward said.
Having worked on the 2004 and 2012 Olympic Games, and been a long-standing mastermind of the London International Horse Show, Brooks-Ward said the “magnetic effect” of Hong Kong made it “a good place to start the growth of sustainable equestrian sport in Asia”.
“Another factor is [strategic partner] The Hong Kong Jockey Club … in every way and every level they’re involved,” Brooks-Ward said. “They have a real desire to be an enabler for equestrian activity, to put it on the map and generate equestrian tourism.