You would be hard-pressed to find a racing jurisdiction anywhere else in the world, where the sport has such a mass-following and the institution governing it, in this case the Hong Kong Jockey Club, is so influential.

Single race days such as the recent Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Races, can easily rack up a betting turnover of more than HK$1 billion (roughly R1 billion). As the single largest taxpayer, references made in jest to the club as the golden purse of the SAR through racing, is by no means an over-exaggeration.

Within this environment of big races and big business, it can become very challenging to foster an appreciation of horses that goes beyond seeing them as mere commodities. This is exactly the area in which the club's equestrian affairs department operates.

"For me personally, the end goal is horsemanship from the people dealing directly with the animals and a fundamental interest in horses as beings from the general public," says Sacha Eckjans, managing head of this department and secretary of the Hong Kong Equestrian Federation.

The setting
After the 2008 Beijing Olympics, interest in equestrian sport received a big boost in Hong Kong, who stepped in for mainland China as host. The waiting list at the club's three public riding schools rose to 3 000, and the visiting numbers from schools at Tuen Mun Riding School alone totalled 16 000 in the one year after the games. I ask Eckjans about the obstacles in cultivating, or rather re-awakening, the historical horsemanship in the city that calls itself the Equine Capitol. "One of the most important things is so basic that you don't even think about it – space. Hong Kong has none.

"Our biggest challenge at the moment is finding a suitable place to build two new riding schools. You have to imagine, for most people, the only interaction with horses available to them, is through racing. There are no idyllic pastoral settings where you can experience what it is to grow together with nature and this animal."

The function of the public riding schools is to provide something of this close contact with horses. Also, it wants to serve as a site for knowledge transfer from the top international equestrian professionals to the local riding community. The unfortunate fact is that at an operational level, there is still a serious lack of know-how.

Training clinics
To combat this, regular clinics and competitions with internationally invited judges, trainers and riders are held. Because of racing the club has the means to give equestrian sports in Hong Kong the support it needs to flourish, a fact that might make some horsing enthusiasts uncomfortable. This, bringing-the-mountain-to-

Mohammed-approach, is a personal strategy of Eckjans.
"It is very easy to become comfortable and isolated here on the island. But we must challenge people to improve their knowledge, so that it serves the horse at the end of the day. Our only chance of succeeding, is if we do this again and again and again."

Bernd Knorr, German horse master, chief riding instructor and manager to all three public schools, is here to do it again and again. He has been at Tuen Mun since 2007. He and his wife Christina, also an instructor, have both been involved in breeding in their native Germany. At Tuen Mun they, among other things, "retrain" horses coming from the racetrack to suite other equestrian disciplines. Retired horses are employed at all equestrian development facilities, which include the public schools, the Jockey Apprentice Programme at the club's Sha Tin Racecourse and the Beas River private riding school.

Retraining horses
For Eckjans this is a way of combining the less romantic financial realities of horse maintenance, with the option of putting the horses to use in a dignified, responsible manner. Every year roughly 400 horses are retired, ranging in age from 6-8 years. The challenges of retraining a Thoroughbred who has lived his life in the fast line, are probably to be expected.

"We find that they don't have a normal gait. And they can't trot. This is because of the air-bound motion of running," Bernd explains. "They need to build new muscles. We try to keep the weight off their backs, so we do a lot of lungeing. It is new to the horse, but because it is actually a natural movement, 50% of the work is done if you just reduce the pace. The key is to work slowly," he explains.

Besides learning how to "walk" again, they also have to be taught the correct position of the head and a rounder neck required for dressage for instance. But besides these "­minor obstacles", Christina gives a rather optimistic answer about the presumed difficulties of working with such finely tuned animals.

"Look, when a horse comes from the track, he only has a history. And don't forget they are fighters. They are trained to win. That is to their advantage now, because it makes them mentally very focused to face new things," she says.

Safe and effective
What is proving more challenging, is teaching people how to work with these horses safely and effectively.

And, there is always the danger of coming across as culturally arrogant because of the differences in language and background.

"It is difficult. We do a lot of groundwork here. But actually, this it is exactly where we were in Germany in 1968. Horses changed from being a working animal to a luxury article and we lost this consciousness of the animals. It will come," says Christina.

One interesting difficulty for riders here is to adopt the positive tension needed to control the horse. Although there is no scientific evidence for it, an interesting explanation is the prevalence over centuries of disciplines such as yoga and Thai Chi, that got built into genetics. But, maybe that too is just history.

"When we look at the results of our riders from FEI competitions, the health of the horses, the reaction of people who come here, we know that we are doing something right," Bernd says.