Hong Kong Jockey Club CEO calls for united front to future-proof horse racing

Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges has called on the global racing community to unite against illegal operators and competitive pressures.

Hong Kong.- Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) and chair of the Asian Racing Federation, has called for increased collaboration in the sport. At the opening of the 41st Asian Racing Conference (ARC) in Riyadh, he identified challenges affecting the industry, such as the growth of unlicensed operators and increased competition from sports betting, igaming and prediction markets.

He said: “We don’t see a positive trend among breeding, and as an industry it is concerning. If we want to create global events and we want to create champions, one of the key drivers is that the best horses compete in races, and this promotes our sport.

“While we see a 35 per cent decline in the number of foals produced globally since 2005, the number of Group 1 races worldwide in the same period has gone up by around 6 per cent. The consequences are that we have less champions, because they have fewer opportunities to avoid each other.

He added: “We want to promote our sport globally, we create heroes, we create competitions, and we create platforms which enable us to build much wider promotion and familiarisation with new customer segments. We collaborate globally so that we have a chance to turn the tide. One of our problems is our inability to overcome fragmentation. We must change our mindset, so that we have global collaboration to really bring the sport forward.”

During a session titled “The Evolving Global Racing and Sporting Landscape,” Engelbrecht-Bresges discussed World Pool’s role in combatting illegal operators.

“We expect that turnover will now be around HK$12bn (in 2025/26). This is an initiative that shows what we can do when we collaborate, when we have the best racing in the world and, importantly, it shows growth. We have expanded the coverage and race meetings to cover 54 per cent of the world’s top Group 1 races across 380 events,” he said.

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Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges has called on the global racing community to unite against illegal operators and competitive pressures. Hong Kong.- Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) and chair of the Asian Racing Federation, has called for increased collaboration in the sport. At the opening of the 41st Asian Racing Conference…