WHERE IS HORSE RACING HEADING (AND WITH WHAT AUDIENCE COMING ALONG FOR THE RIDE)?

While skimming through news in the horse racing world and seeing all kinds of everything that might amount to nothing as a changing of the guard is apparently ready to march through the trenches of one particular racing radio station in Australia, the ongoing adventures of Frankie going to Hollywood, and a possible new turn in the sale of the Macau Jockey Club involving Galaxy, my meandering regular conversations with photographer Wallace Wan, who pretty much lives and breathes Hong Kong racing, often take some very odd turns. 

This week, while chatting about the possible marketability of Hong Kong born jockeys in apprentice Britney Wong and the very likeable Keith Yeung, below, as Good Vibes ambassadors, the conversation veered off course, and into which actors could portray some of the city’s horse racing personalities. 

If nothing else, the exercise was food for some frivolous thought or thoughts attached with some fraught to things bubbling in the undergrowth of one’s toes.

Our current casting for “Hollyweird” reads something like this- and open to suggestions. Even rude ones.

David Hayes played by Bill Murray

Brenton Avdulla played by Nicolas Cage

Pierre Ng played by Chow Yun-fat

Danny Shum played by Tony Leung 

Karis Teetan played by Kevin Hart

Andrea Atzeni played by Rowan “Mr Bean” Atkinson 

Paul Lally played by Bob Hoskins

Caspar Fownes played by Peter Sellers

Lyle Hewitson played by Spider-Man

Hugh Bowman played by Christian “Batman” Bale

John Size played by Clint Eastwood

Tony Cruz played by Robert DeNiro

No one can possibly play The Zac Man.

---

The Plot

Hong Kong is suddenly covered in a black forest cake of negativity and taken over by gremlin-like dim sums! 

The mysterious and powerful E.B., below, sends his Oompah Loompahs out to all parts of the city to find and bring him the cauliflower head of Unhappiness.

---

All this aside, interesting to follow might be the recent introduction of Simon Fuller to Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, CEO of the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

A longtime friend and the man behind the creation of the American Idol franchise whose company X1X Entertainment has managed the careers of everyone from the Spice Girls and David and Victoria Beckham to Lewis Hamilton, Amy Winehouse and Andy Murray, Simon has been in Hong Kong a couple of times in the recent month for meetings especially with the HKJC and one with the Hong Kong government. 

Where this might lead when it comes to HKIR week in December leading to the Lunar New Year of the Horse should make for interesting, and very possibly, some much needed game changing tweaks for horse racing.

Depending on what these changes might be, they will naturally interest its current and new audiences along with seeing possible new business models adding extra value to broadcasting rights by bringing new content and global players- sponsors and partnerships- into the game.