It was restaurant-bar with the unique name of WTF in the Soho area of Hong Kong that got the ball rolling and hearts galloping by creating shooters and cocktails based around horse racing themed names like The Zac Attack, The Durban Demon, The Cruz Missile etc. It was and is lethal stuff.

(Source: Celebration Generation)

It was a small step to take the sport onto newer turf and a different and younger consumer base which has been continued by Adrenaline, the venue at the Happy Valley Racecourse comprising the IBU inter-active tables that looks like the Mothership of racing data and has all the facts and figures about the horses, jockeys and trainers participating in the races on every Happy Wednesday Night.

(Source: HKJC)

Adrenaline is also more than that. Apart from being able to watch the races from the balcony of the club or the banks of Mission Impossible-type television screens strategically placed around the betting area, Adrenaline is attracting the younger, affluent and more savvy punter who also enjoys getting together with friends, inter-acting with like-minded other regulars about subjects other than horse racing. That gets boring very quickly.

(Source: HKJC)

Adrenaline has very quickly changed its image from the venue’s original incarnation: Just another club in an “isolated” part of town for non-racegoers and, mostly, a magnet for lonely guys on the prowl with as little money as possible and nursing a flat beer all night long.

(Source: Clip Art Heaven)

It might have been “successful” but it could have also been any tacky bar in Soho or Lan Kwai Fong. There was no USP whereas the new Adrenaline houses ‘live’ music, racing specialists as guides to betting, a great buffet for around $280 and some of the best customer service we have come across in what can be a surly food and beverage business.

Adrenaline is Adrenaline and it’s constantly involving. And so is catering to the racing crowd- again, the younger, affluent racing crowd led by the new generation of horse owners who, at the moment, have nowhere to meet and inter-act with their peers on non-race days.

(Source: Open Rice)

Sure, there is an over-supply of bars and clubs and restaurants in Hong Kong, but there is a sameness to them all cluttered with different customer bases where one either doesn’t fit in or don’t wish to fit in.

There is no real racing-themed restaurant or bar. There is no Hard Rock Cafe or a Nobu of horse racing.

(Source: Wiki)

It’s not like what the very popular JJ’s at the Grand Hyatt and Champagne Bar used to be- welcoming magnets to trainers, owners, jockeys, racing executives, hangers-on and Hong Kong racing’s very long conga line of male and female racing groupies.

That was the past and no one has created a future and a present.

(Source: HK Asia City)

Having said this, perhaps there is hope in sight, thanks to a very savvy Shanghainese lady in Hong Kong who owns a number of restaurants and properties like the extremely popular Bistro Manchu restaurant in Elgin Street in Soho.

(Source: Flickr)

We’ve been speaking to this lady about one of our pet projects who is now in her Seventies, very passionate about everything her very active mind takes on and with a focus on China and investing in young artists from Mainland China. She is also mercifully lacking in bs.

Our pet project is this: If there could have been a Planet Hollywood and the ill-conceived Planet Supermodels, why not an upmarket racing-themed upmarket restaurant- but without the bells and whistles and celebrity-populated Planets? Those were gimmicks that worked in the Eighties along with Crockett and Tubbs and Starsky and Hutch.

(Source: Daily Mail)

Why not, indeed, asks our Shanghainese friend with her own connection of business partners and penchant for Italian cuisine and one hundred-course Manchurian banquets created for emperors.

Plus- and so key- she has the perfect location, location, location for this venue and knows full-well that this could become a franchise.

Perhaps Co-mingling is a timely name???

We both also know that this venue can ONLY be a success if started in Hong Kong by working with those who know all facets of racing, have strong roller-decks plus understand the importance of hiring bona fide food and beverage professionals and not fly-by-night operators with fake “Michelin Star” status.

(Source: Typepad)

A restaurant like this is a small part of the ingredients needed to make horse racing a mainstream sport and part of a bigger and world of global entertainment.

Racing MUST have a presence away from the racetrack and MUST lose the perception of being only a mug’s game for the pokies.

(Source: Vimeo CDN)

Struggling racing clubs with cash flow problems should cut their losses and get out of the business they might have been running like a weekend hobby.

They’ve either had their chances and failed or were cut from the main herd years ago. Perhaps they were even culled.

And here, heads of so many racing clubs in Australia and the UK living in the past and blinkered about NEW business revenue generators better wake up and realize that they are taking the sport down the toilet- along with their images.

They cannot continue to make highly-paid and ineffective knobs of themselves.

(Source: The Globe And Mail)

Horse racing MUST attract to racecourses- and other racing-inspired businesses- everyone from Beyonce and Jay-Z, Katy Perry and Tarantino to the Stones, even the publicity hound that is Richard Branson and the Beckhams- all with media pull and glamour needed to create a GLOBAL Renaissance period for the sport.

(Source: Hollywood Reporter)

Plus, as with the Hong Kong Jockey Club, racing must be seen to giving something back to charity. It cannot be shy about this and think that “everybody knows”. Many have short memories and need to be constantly reminded with a club.

(Source: CUHK)

It helps to remove that ugly word called “gambling” and it makes governments feel warm and fuzzy and in-debt for making them look good. It’s an offer many can’t refuse.

(Source: Earth Photography)

Of course, if racing clubs have no money, they have nothing to give and should take their ball and go home.

(Source: Wiki)

By hanging about picking their noses and waiting for bailouts and the Good Fairy to appear, sorry, but they’re just getting in the way.

Their presence is also driving away angel investors and those who see horse racing in new, positive ways and wish to be part of creating a new business through a new business world of horse racing.

Yes, it’s nothing personal, it’s business and horse racing is a business and not an industry that should be run as a sideline.

(Source: Lulu)