TAKE OUR WORLD CLASS RACING AWAY AND WHAT’S HONG KONG’S USP?

It still does not get the support or the respect it deserves.

We are talking about horse racing.

To be more precise, Hong Kong’s International Races which is the equivalent of the Oscars of the turf world.

The Oscars of the Turf World:

This is how this event needs to be branded and positioned.

This is how the sport and what this annual event brings to Hong Kong will be respected.

And how it will stop being the Rodney Dangerfield of Sports.

This is how sponsors and brands like Cathay Pacific, CSL 1010, Audermars Piguet etc will realize how to get more bangs for their buck.

And how not to look at an event like this as being one day of sponsorship, an endless presentation of Cups and some “banner ads”.

Where is the inter-activity?

Where is the follow-up campaign?

Why not be part of the human interest stories that are so much part of Hong Kong racing?

Like the drama and partnership and win on Sunday of Hong Kong “sons” in trainer Tony Cruz and jockey Matthew Chadwick?

And that a marvelous horse in California Memory and the loyalty and confidence of its owner to both trainer and jockey?

What about what our great mate and trainer Caspar Fownes achieved for Hong Kong with Lucky Nine?

And what about Dr Cornel Li’s amazing run of luck with his equally amazing horse named Able One?

How many people outside of that captive audience of the racing pages know about any of the above?

Would they care if they did?

Yes.

With this branding, those in Marketing at the Hong Kong Jockey Club will have a new carrot- and USP- to dangle in front of sponsors.

Forget about going to sponsors with cap in one hand and a begging bowl in the other.

Stop being Oliver Twist asking, “Please, Sir, may I have more?”

Stop having to cower to the various Fagins.

Have them come to you and ask, “Please, Sir, we want more!”

Remember this line: The Hong Kong International Races are the Oscars of the racing world.

It needs to take this high road to be seen in a different light.

And be taken seriously and given the respect and lack of bullshit and arrogant and ignorant governmental red tape which is stopping its progress.

It is one of Hong Kong’s very few USPs.

It needs to be understood and it needs to be nourished and replenished for it to grow.

It cannot have its legs cut from beneath it.

Right now, apart from spiraling rents, Hong Kong does not have much going for it.

“Asia’s World City” is somewhere else.

Like Singapore. Or Shanghai.

It’s not Hong Kong.

It cannot live up to its cutesy advertising slogan.

As an International media hub, Singapore is it.

Hong Kong’s night life cannot compare to what is in Singapore today.

Same with the support for concerts, gigs, the arts and all things creative.

Hong Government organizations like InvestHK, BrandHK and CreateHK?

Vapid, useless organizations which Hong Kong taxpayers are carrying- along with those who sail aboard these white elephants.

Sunday’s Hong Kong international Races had it all.

Most of all, it was a Hong Kong success story.

Three of these Hong Kong success stories were written when Hong Kong horses, jockeys, trainers and owners won three of the four Group 1 races.

This feat should have SCREAMED out of the front pages of every Hong Kong newspaper.

Instead, this honour, this huge pride in what Hong Kong had accomplished were “relegated” to the captive audience of the racing pages.

Hell, some poor sod coming last in the Olympics swimming trials would have got more publicity.

There were over 61,000 people at Shatin on Sunday.

For doing nothing to support the event, the Hong Kong Government will receive a nice fat cheque of HK$129 MILLION in taxes from the Hong Kong Jockey Club for yesterday’s International Races.

Hello? What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

For years now, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, the CEO of the HKJC, has been banging on about “comingling.”

He needs a strong ally, or allies, as the future of horse racing is reaching a point of no return.

And this “commingling” MUST and IS the future.

The Hong Kong Government needs a big fire lit under its arse to understand this- and how they need to pay the Piper for those taxes on racing the HKJC pays.

Sometimes, we are sure “E.B” bangs his head against the wall at 1 Sports Road when he sees how closed-minded those government cretins are about this subject.

This subject is not only for “racing people”.

It’s for the benefit of all Hong Kong people.

And it must be understood by all Hong Kong people.

This includes a Government which has become a joke and is at its lowest level of “popularity.”

It has seriously become The Ministry of Silly Walks.

Spell it how you will- comingling, co-mingling- it still sounds way too complicated.

It has also come to a point where it is way too important a subject for all of Hong Kong to be written about by racing writers.

It devalues its importance.

Nothing against racing writers, but it needs allies in journalists like Jake Van Der Kamp.

Alex Lo, Greg Torode, Neil Western, others at Bloomberg and business writers.

This “commingling” is still to be fully understood by those on the periphery and to whom it might be coming across as people “living in sin” and going jiggy with gender blending sexual antics.

Or doing naughty things more in line with a party with Caligula.

Or the mating process of strange business bedfellows.

This particular “co-mingling” must be made to be understood in simple layman’s terms.

How, why and where it will benefit Hong Kong and why the government needs to remove its blinkers.

And why the HKJC will pay that HK$129 million in taxes and where this will go and what exactly the Hong Kong Government has done to deserve it.

Sometimes, we have to wonder if the Hong Kong Government is Oliver Twist wanting “More” or Fagin wanting it all.

Perhaps, it’s both.