HORSE racing in Hong Kong was one of the few sports in the world to keep the show on the road during Covid-19.
It took a monumental effort from the Hong Kong Jockey Club to continue racing during the early stages of the pandemic, but like in other sports and walks of life, it has had a longer-term impact.
During a media briefing at this month’s LONGINES Hong Kong International Races meeting, HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges reflected on how Covid has affected not only Hong Kong, but also global racing.
“All racing jurisdictions have to be aware that Covid has changed customer behaviour massively,” he said.
“It needs a better understanding of how customer behaviour has changed and what therefore is necessary for racing and especially for those who are customer facing – how you have to change your offerings and what you have to do to retain your customers and gain new customers.”
With Hong Kongers able to travel again and people becoming more accustomed to digital products, competition for the ‘leisure dollar’ has increased.
“We have observed this too,” said Engelbrecht-Bresges. “Our local turnover last year was down by around 7 or 8 percent, but we compensated partially with commingling, which grew by around 15 percent, so our overall turnover last year was down by around 4.5 percent.
“We have put a lot of effort into how we can reposition racing, how we can reconnect to our customers – and we have been successful. Local turnover this season is up around 1.5-2 percent and overseas turnover by around 12-13, so this is a positive development.”
There have been plenty of negative headlines around British racing recently, with falling attendances, prize money struggles and the impact of intrusive affordability checks.
Hong Kong is often regarded as the blueprint for racing jurisdictions, but it also hasn’t been immune to the threats.
“I personally think our racecourse attendance for a normal meeting was down around 15 percent because people have been so used to the digital side after Covid, why should you come to the races?” questioned Engelbrecht-Bresges.
“If you don’t create special events, if you don’t create a really special offering, they stay at home and they bet, but long term if you don’t get people to the races – and our survey shows clearly people have to go at least seven times to create stickiness.
“So, what we do therefore to get the stickiness is we create more events which are linked to each other.”
Attracting a younger audience is a key priority for Engelbrecht-Bresges, who has been CEO at the HKJC since 2007, and also raised this at last summer’s Asian Racing Conference.
“We have significantly dialled up our efforts when it comes to Gen Z, where we have created new offerings for this customer segment,” he said.
“And it’s interesting that we see a growth around 10 percent in the Gen Z sector. That’s the first time that we think we have got a connectivity, which we think it was necessary to have in this segment.”
Engelbrecht-Bresges sees new technologies as a vital way to engage this audience and the Club has recently launched an AI pilot.
“We have created a digital experience of horse racing, with AI generated horse selections,” he said.
“We need to think how younger generations decompose racing’s classical form guides into something that’s easier to understand, so we’ve broken it up into criteria; the form of the jockey, horse, trainer, and then they can choose what criteria they think are most important, which then leads into an AI generated recommendation.
“The issue is not what they bet, it is how you can familiarise them [with the sport] and what are the components which are relevant to select horses.
“So, it’s very interactive, and you can probably improve certain things that can dig into this, but the feedback of this pilot has been positive. We will then look to roll this out onto a digital platform and on mobile apps, probably in the next four or five months,” said Engelbrecht-Bresges.
World Pool continues to be a major success story for the HKJC after it was first launched at Royal Ascot in 2019, with the number of fixtures growing each year.
It was announced last month that all 12 Group Ones in Hong Kong this season will be run under the World Pool banner for the first time and Engelbrecht-Bresges sees more potential for growth.
“I personally think World Pool is a unique opportunity to reposition pool betting on certain races where you focus on the sporting quality, and it’s not only gambling,” he said.
“It’s difficult in a culture where pool betting was never as popular, like in Great Britain, but now with World Pool, do you not have a chance to create, at least for certain events, an attractive alternative?
“I think we as racing should try to create a global product, and it’s not everything. It will be only then specific selective races with a certain quality.
“And then I want to see the same standards regarding rules, the same standards regarding quality of broadcasting, the same standards regarding quality of information, the same quality of integrity. This should become a global brand.”
The Hong Kong International Races a week past Sunday proved to be an incredible day of sport, with Britain’s first winner at the meeting in 12 years thanks to Giavellotto in the Hong Kong Vase, as well as local superstars Romantic Warrior, Ka Ying Rising and Voyage Bubble beating off the overseas competition.
Engelbrecht-Bresges lauded the meeting as “one of the best days of racing” in Hong Kong racing history and that view was difficult to argue with for any of the 70,000 in attendance.
