The Nanjing International Equestrian Venue in Jiangsu Province used to thunder with the sound of hoof beats, but now the only sound is the occasional squeal of tires. The once-proud racing track has been turned into a parking lot, with hoof prints covered in tire tracks, hurdles scattered willy-nilly, and overgrown weeds sprawling across the track. 

Little money is spent on maintaining the race track. Its eight stables can hold 400 horses, but now have barely a tenth of that number, according to a recent report by Time Weekly, a weekly newspaper based in Guangzhou.

The track was established in 2003 and cost over 500 million yuan ($80.35 million). But since then, the course has been used only once for a big race, in 2005.

Globally, horse racing's main source of income is gambling, which makes it difficult to run in China.

Although gambling is illegal on the mainland, "lottery" systems have been used in the past to circumvent regulations. But following government crackdowns, many venues have closed.

Xie Ruiman, manager of the Qili Jockey Club in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, which has 26 horses and covers a mere 15 hectares, told the Global Times in a phone interview that the state of racing tracks in the mainland is dire.

 "There are no real equestrian venues now, and even those that were once popular among horse racing lovers are not in a good condition," Xie said, adding that there are many jockey clubs like hers but they are much smaller than racetracks. 

Xie was in Beijing during the downturn in racing following a short-lived boom seven years ago. She was a professional jockey then.

"The handrails were rusting every day, and the horses were even killed," she recalled, referring to events in November 2005 in the Beijing Tongshun Equestrian Venue, located in Tongzhou district, when several hundred healthy horses were put down by lethal injection. "Our venue can neither live nor die," Chen Jinquan, the track's vice president, told the China Times.

Bygone prosperity

The Tongshun track covers 160 hectares, which is over 10 times the size of Xie's club.

It once had about 2,000 horses, including many purebreds imported from Western countries.

But the good times were short-lived. The venue delivered a request orally to the local taxation bureau, asking to be allowed to run a horse racing lottery in March 2004, which was approved, according to Chen.

"The deal was made. Seventy percent of the income was returned to bettors, 20 percent went for tax, and the remaining 10 percent was for the venue," said Chen, adding that there were over 2,000 people watching horse racing at the venue at its heyday.

However, in October 2004, seven months after the oral deal was made, a branch of the Beijing Public Security Bureau asked the track to stop its horse racing activities for allegations of keeping the horse racing lottery open, also in the form of oral notification.

Xie said she is not sure whether the track ran such lotteries, because the topic is sensitive and was not publicly discussed. But she knew the venue did raise money and attracted a large audience then.

Horse racing lotteries were first issued in 1991 in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province. After that, equestrian venues boomed in Beijing and other provinces like Guangdong, Hainan and Zhejiang, according to Time Weekly.

In Guangzhou the lottery survived for seven years, which helped raise charity funds of about 300 million yuan, according to the report.

The prosperity didn't last long. In 2000, race courses all over the country were inspected, and venues involved in or being suspected of practicing betting were closed down.

Two years later, several ministries, including the General Administration of Sport, jointly issued documents that strictly banned horse racing activities with gambling or lottery features.

Huge investment

Yet despite this, some equestrian venues are still being built. Guangzhou Conghua Equestrian Venue cost 700 million yuan, and Jinma International Equestrian Sports City in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, which is under construction, is said to have cost as much as 1 billion yuan.

The Conghua Equestrian Venue, built for the 2010 Asian Games, claims to be the largest venue in China. It covers 146 hectares, equal to that of 200 football grounds.

In a comment piece in 2010, People's Daily speculated that these tracks are effectively a gamble themselves. Horse racing is not popular in China, but race course owners are playing a long game, expecting that one day the government will lift the ban on horse racing lottery.

That's why big money is still being thrown into the business, despite the failure of previous tracks.

Cities which have built, are building or will build venues include Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu and Ji'nan, an insider told Nanfang Daily in June 2011.

Horse races are held once or twice every week, and are free to the public, but few people come. At one track in Wuhan, Hubei Province, the stands can hold up to 30,000 people, but the site has never seen anywhere near that number, a security guard told the newspaper.

The guard worked for Dongfang Horse Racing Group in Wuhan, the only track in Central China which meets international construction standards.

The lack of authoritative races and the ban on horse racing lotteries mean that club members don't show enthusiasm, and its business is faltering, insiders revealed.

Hu Yuegao, CEO of Dongfang Horse Racing Group hopes to introduce Hong Kong style racing to the mainland, using horse racing to boost the development of tourism, business and real estate, according to Nanfang Daily.

Hong Kong's Jockey Club was founded in 1884, and has a monopoly on government-backed, non-profit gambling, making it one of the island's biggest charitable donors. In most countries, however, betting on horse races is a purely for-profit business.

Possible benefits

Once a lottery is issued, generous profits will come. Each year, sales will reach 100 billion yuan, revenue 40 billion yuan, and it will provide 3 million job opportunities, claims Qin Zunwen, a leading industry expert on the subject.

Gambling on horse racing produces HK$80 billion every year in Hong Kong. It can also boost other services, such as horse breeding, harness manufacturing and tourism, said Chang Wei, deputy secretary with Chinese Equestrian Association.

"Without a lottery, any equestrian venue is doomed to lose money," said Qin Yingwei to the Global Times. Qin, the pioneer who first proposed the idea of horse racing lotteries on the mainland, is based in Wuhan. He added that the venue needs huge investment and it is difficult to run the business without government support.

While in Hong Kong, horse racing lottery keeps the industry virtuous, it's an ideological problem on the mainland since gambling is banned, said Qin.

Not everyone is for the lottery system. "Hong Kong has a comprehensive regulation system, but we don't," said Li Gang, a doctoral candidate at the lottery research center with Shanghai Normal University, to the Global Times. He opposes such forms of gambling on the mainland.

Hectic times

Li's concerns are understandable, Xie admits that watching speed horse racing is much more exciting than buying the existing government-backed regular lottery tickets.

"Being among racing fans, cheering for one's favorite horse and watching horses running like the wind is really thrilling," she said, adding that it is possible that some passionate members of the audience could lose their reason. 

Despite its illegal nature, gambling halls run by local gangs are common in the Chinese countryside, and illicit games are easy to find in the big city. The long-standing cultural addiction to gambling leads some to worry that a horse racing lottery would be just another chance for people to waste money.

But, people's desire for gambling cannot just be oppressed, Xie believes. "If it can be guided rationally, it would be good for economic development."

Like other owners of jockey clubs or equestrian venues, Xie expects that the lottery will be allowed one day. "If it can be permitted, the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages," she said.

The recession in horse racing now is due to the under-development of the horse racing industry, Xie noted. "It is not only sport, but also an industry chain," said Xie, claiming that its popularity in developed countries like the US, UK, Japan and South Korea reflects the high level of their economic development.