Clearly starving and malnourished horses at the Beijing Jockey Club in Tongzhou district. Photo: Courtesy of Mark Godfrey

By Wen Tao

At least 36 thoroughbreds at  a struggling Tongzhou racing club starved to death in less than 20 days last month.

On the horses" first week without food, an on-site reporter witnessed horses clumsily walking toward a fence, neighing weakly and biting at the wooden fence in want of food, according to qianlong.com.

Each horse may have been worth nearly 150,000 yuan  ($22,000), staff at the Beijing Jockey Club said. According to Brian Ridley, a Shenzhen-based importer of racing horses, some thoroughbreds can cost up to 4 million yuan ($586,000).

The Beijing Jockey Club, who owns a stable with more than 2,000 racing horses, sank into a lease dispute with local villagers in Songzhuang who rented 160 hectares of their land to the club in 1997, on a 30 year lease. Villagers wanted to increase the rent, but were refused by the club. Villagers blocked the club gate, preventing trucks transporting food from entering.

The mound used to block the vehicles was removed before National Day due to moderately successful but temporary mediations. Li Hualiang, reporter for the Beijing Youth Daily who had written many stories on the issue, said that to his knowledge, some villagers still occasionally sit outside the ranch, obstructing in protest.

Before the club fell from grace, it was the largest racing field and stable in Asia. Hong Kong racing tycoon Yung Pung Chung invested $65 million on the racetrack and stables. It is also host to the state gift horse given by Turkmenistan"s leader to China in 2002.

Everything changed in 2005. The club was involved in a lawsuit alleging gambling at their racing venues. The club had to close down its once booming races, keeping only the stable.

In 2005 Chen Jinquan, then head of the club, told the press that they had "dealt with" about 500 horses in only a year. Vets gave the horses lethal injections and buried them. It was described as euthanasia by an Irish chief racing officer. The executed horses included retired horses, barren mares and colts not fit for racing.

Li Yan, Office Manager of the club, told the Global Times yesterday that the situation is "peaceful and stable" and that they didn"t want any more coverage from media, refusing to give further comment. Xu Qiancheng, a Beijing Evening News reporter previously in contact with Li, told the Global Times that Li was eager to talk to the media during the confrontation with local villagers.

A clerk surnamed Gu at the local village committee, told the Global Times he was not aware of the conflict between fellow villagers and the club.

The General Secretary of the China Horse Industry Association, Yue Gaofeng, said that the starvation was an isolated case, and that most horses were stable and well managed.

Newer racing facilities in China stress attention to animal welfare. Nanjing will soon have a state of the art equine veterinarian center, as part of the Royal Nanjing Jockey Club, currently under construction.