Conghua Racecourse opens in China

The Hong Kong Jockey Club has announced the opening of the horse racing venue in the Conghua District of Guangzhou, in south-eastern China.

China.- The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) has announced the official opening of its Conghua Racecourse, a venue designed to revamp horse racing whilst celebrating the close relations between Hong Kong and the Guandong province. It’s located in the Conghua District of Guangzhou, Guangdong, and provides the mainland with its first “world-class racecourse and thoroughbred training centre,” as the HKJC described.

“The Hong Kong Jockey Club is a world leader in the sport of horse racing and home to some of the world’s top racehorses. Conghua Racecourse will enable us to elevate our racing to an even higher level of excellence,” HKJC chairman Dr Simon S O Ip explained and added: “It has outstanding training and horse care facilities, including the first world-class equine hospital in the mainland. Conghua District itself has high environmental standards, with excellent air and water quality. In short, it is a superb place in which to train our horses.”

The HKJC explained that the development’s location is critical to its operations as it’s within the “only large-scale internationally recognised equine disease-free zone,” ensuring horses enjoy the same health status in Conghua as in Hong Kong. That makes possible for horses from one area to be safely moved to the other.

“Conghua Racecourse is to also contribute to the development of equine sports on the mainline, as well as to the wider economy and employment, whilst looking forward it has a “great potential to support the development of an equine industry, in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and in the mainland as a whole,” Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, HKJC CEO, stated.

Chen Jianhua, chairman of the Standing Committee of Guangzhou Municipal People’s Congress, added: “After years of persisting efforts by relevant parties, a modern, high-tech, world-class racecourse and China’s largest world-class horse sports training centre is now rising in front of us.

“The opening of Conghua Racecourse lays a solid foundation for horse industry cooperation between Guangzhou and Hong Kong, opens things up for imagination and presents a promising prospect for development.”