Horse lovers hoping to see industry gallop

By Zhao Qian  www.business.globaltimes.cn

“I feel excited when I’m on horseback, I really love him,” said 7-year-old Wang Mochi, as she gently stroked a brown horse at Yan Long International Horse Company’s race course in the Yan Jiao Economic Development Area in eastern rural Beijing.

Wang Mochi, 7, puts a horse through its paces at Yan Long International Horse Company in Beijing. Photo: Wang Mochi

Wang began riding lessons when she was only 4 and has mastered basic equestrian skills. “The horse and I have already become good friends. I’d like to groom him. See how beautiful he looks,” she said.

Horseback riding is becoming increasingly popular among young, well-heeled urban residents, but 30 or more years ago when the horses were primarily beasts of burden or raised for food and milk, few Chinese could have imagined that they’d be used for sport and recreation.

“The Chinese horse market is in a transitional period,” Yue Gaofeng, executive secretary-general of the China National Horse Industry Association (CNHIA), told the Global Times.

“The modern Chinese horse industry covers raising them as livestock for food and milk, breeding, recreational riding and tourism and has a lot of room to develop, unlike some Western countries where the equestrian market is already comprehensive and mature,” Yue said.

Grand plans to gallop

As such, some foreign investors have begun saddling up to ride the mainland horse market.

This March, Meydan City Corporation (Dubai, UAE) announced plans for a joint venture project, Tianjin Horse City in Ninghe County, Tianjin to train 8,000 professional equestrians and breed 1,000 high quality horses within five years.

Tianjin Horse City, with the total estimated project value amounting to 24 billion yuan ($3.51 billion), will be jointly established by four groups: Meydan, TAK Design Consultants (Malaysia), Zhouji Jiye (China) and Tianjin Farm Group (China).

Similar projects are underway at Wenjiang Horse City in West China’s Sichuan Province and Xilingolite Horse City in North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The Chinese horses industry’s output value is predicted to have a growth rate of 20-30 percent annually, according to a report by Yubo Group, a diversified business group that deals in specialized exhibition, media investment and marketing resources.

Yubo is also co-hosting an international horse fair, HORFA China 2010, from September 24-26 in Shanghai with horses from different regions to attract investors and equine lovers alike.

Labor shortage

But these grand plans also face major obstacles. China lacks experienced horse professionals such as trainers, grooms and jockeys and its most well-known horse, the Shandan horse in Gansu Province that was used to transport military goods before the 1970s, is good at bearing heavy burdens, but is not adapted for riding or racing.

And in other parts of China like Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region , most horses are used for meat and milk. Qian Zhongping, a 47-year old man at Hongshan Farm in the Barkol Kazak Autonomous County in West China’s Xinjiang has bred horses for more than 20 years, but only has about 40 horses in all.

“Every year, I sell around 10 horses for meat, and nearly 10 colts are born annually,” Qian said, “and the net profit of each horse sale is only around 2,000 yuan ($300).

“I have little money to set up a race course, but if the government teaches us how to breed quality horses and give us financial support, my business could be larger,” Qian said. “We have huge grassy fields, that’s to our advantage.”

In Beijing, a large proportion of Yan Long International Horse Company’s horses are imported from overseas including Germany. “They are really expensive, some cost more than 1 million yuan ($146,400),” Han Zhanjun, the deputy general manager, told the Global Times.

And it can take more than 30 years to breed a good species of racehorse, according to Yue Gaofeng of CNHIA.

“CNHIA has set up a horse breeding registration system to register the blood lineage, and we also need the local governmental support, including monitoring to ensure that the first or second generation horses will not be sold just for money, but used for breeding into the third and forth generations,” Yue said.

The labor shortage is seen at Yan Long where there are only five self-taught trainers who have been working for about three years, as well as teaching others such as young Wang Mochi equestrian skills.

“The trainers here have a relatively lower literacy level,” Han confessed, “but we will create opportunities in the future for them to gain advanced experience abroad.”

A 5-year-old boy, Wang Hanxiang, whose mother, Taiwanese-American Angel Wang, hired a private Canadian trainer for him, has taken riding lessons for nearly a year at Jialiang Equestrian Club in Shanghai.

“My son took lessons in California before we moved to Shanghai last year, but here we found that the domestic trainers really lack experience and skills, let alone being able to communicate with the horses,” Wang said. “That is why we’ve hired a costly foreign trainer.”

“The horses at the Jialiang Equestrian Club lack daily training,” she added with disappointment. “A horse needs to exercise every day to keep its muscles strong.”

No betting allowed

While Chinese famously enjoy gambling, one potential source of public welfare income and horse promotion – racing – is illegal on the mainland, unlike Hong Kong where off-track betting draws millions of dollars in tax revenue annually.

Horse racing was banned in 1949, but reappeared on a small scale in the 1990s, but not with gambling. In 2008, one commercial horse race was organized in Wuhan, as a trial step, analysts said, towards legalized race gambling. But nothing has changed since.

Yue Gaofeng of CNHIA said, “Betting on horse racing with all the tax revenue for public welfare could be the most effective way to benefit the horse market if it were organized regularly and fairly.”

But things would not be that easy. “Several key issues including who would be the organizer of the betting affairs – the General Administration of Sports, the Ministry of Agriculture, or the Ministry of Civil Affairs – need to be resolved to pave the way for legalizing betting.”

“There is also the danger of corruption, so it’s important that it be run fairly,” Yue said. “What we need is a race bet-ting system for public affairs, with all the tax revenue collected used to support agriculture and farmers. The money of the urban rich could be transmitted to the rural poor people’s pockets.” He also said that a racing industry could create “tens of thousands of jobs once a nationwide betting network is set up.”

As for Wang Mochi, the little girl wearing a white riding jacket, she only wants her friends to join her. “I will invite my classmates here, and we all can make friends with the lovely horses,” she said with smile.