Word: kong
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...While thoroughbred ownership in Australia and the U.K. is increasingly within reach of commoners, the Hong Kong racing scene is dominated by the rich and connected. Those who want a piece of the action must first be a member of the Jockey Club - joining fees start at $30,000. Membership qualifies you to enter a Byzantine annual lottery in which members compete for roughly 300 spots that give them the right to purchase a horse and have it stabled in the Jockey Club's ritzy training facilities. This is how Lo, the Hong Kong fashion executive, became an owner...
...They decided on a 2-year-old gelding from New Zealand that cost $65,000 - a bargain in Hong Kong, where horses often go for four times as much. The punters named him Garden Party, but he was no party animal. For a year, Lo and his partners fronted the cash, close to $30,000, to stable Garden Party and pay his livery and training fees. But on the eve of the horse's first race, medical scans revealed he had a nonlethal cancer. He couldn't race in Hong Kong. Dismayed, Lo and his partners shipped Garden Party home...
...Their total investment of more than $130,000 was a total loss, but at least Lo was in good company. David Price, a horse trader based in Hong Kong, reckons that at least a quarter of the thoroughbreds brought into the city turn out to be financial black holes. He believes owners should pat themselves on the back if they're able to recoup a horse's livery fees through prize money. Snagging a champion horse requires lots of luck. "All the things in a [winning] horse - courage, constitution, the will to win - are things you can't see," says...
...This is why many prospective owners turn to experts like Price, whose company buys up young horses and puts them through their paces before deeming them fit for market. Four years ago, Price brought in from Australia Hong Kong's most famous steed: Silent Witness, who won 17 races and racked up $8 million in winnings - and who would have kept on earning after his retirement earlier this year through stud fees, if only he hadn't been gelded. Unfortunately, Silent Witness's trainers didn't see much value in his bloodline at the outset of his racing career...
...While the unpredictability of a horse's racing form and the oft-inscrutable methods used to gauge it can befuddle dilettantes, good fortune can smile on the persistent. In 2003, following the Garden Party disappointment, Lo and his partners from various corners of Hong Kong's professional world - manufacturing, movies and modeling - located another 2-year-old gelding named Pocket Money in Ireland through a trainer's connections. They bought him and shipped him to Hong Kong. After two seasons with little consistent success racing the horse at various distances and in differing weight classes, they switched to another trainer...