Equestrian In China - Horsey People

The car park at Equuleus International Equestrian Centre suggests China's plutocrats are relishing their time in the saddle. On a weekend morning the yard is a cacophony of four-wheel drive engines and the click of new leather boots. Business indeed is good for the club, the busiest in a crop of high-end riding schools across the city.

But the off-the-shelf chaps and helmets are the easy part, says Wang Qiang, who manages the club in Beijing's Shunyi district. She'd also like her members to think about the welfare of the horses they ride. Hence Equuleus is the first equestrian club in the city to offer a course in horse welfare and feeding. During 10 bilingual lessons, running through the summer, members and visitors can learn how to clean, feed and tack a horse. The program could be a first for China, where equestrian clubs have sprung up to cater to a social-climbing local elite willing to pay the 300 yuan-plus ($44) an hour that one of Equuleus riding coaches costs. Learning to ride can be a costly business. But lack of knowledge wreaks its own price in animal discomfort, says Wang. A stylish former journalist, Wang has seen plenty of opportunists opening riding clubs in Beijing without any knowledge of horses. Proper feed, stabling and rest are secondary concerns. "They see it as a quick way to make money." Biggest center Wang, who uses her English name Michelle, honed her own riding skills in a small equestrian center in Daxing district. Called Pao Xianghu, it was in 1985 Beijing's first riding club. "We were a group of pals who wanted to ride and we used to go there nearly every weekend." One of the other riders the young magazine editor met in Daxing would be her future husband, Shi Qi. Whereas Wang is a Beijing native, Shi grew up in western Xinjiang, riding native Yili breed horses, tough-heavy set animals named after a town on the Kazakh border. The relationship grew during weekends trekking on Mongolian ponies in the grasslands north of Beijing, and the couple bought a thoroughbred in 1998 with the earnings from Shi's interior decoration firm. The couple came across Equuleus while looking for stabling. A friendship with the club's proprietor turned into a business partnership. With too much on his plate, the local businessman who had opened Equuleus was happy to partner up with a young, horse-mad couple. They took over the business and its nine horses in 2001. Today the couple stables 80 horses at what is considered the city's biggest equestrian center, in numbers of horses. A mother of two infant daughters, Wang's major in Optical Instrumentation doesn't appear to match with her career path. Her first job in an export-import company was followed by three years at Trends, a magazine publisher with titles such as the Chinese edition of Cosmopolitan. That's where she polished her English and learnt some French. Much of her equine knowledge was acquired from books. To know how and what to teach at Equuleus, she dispatched her second most senior coach, Yang Fucun, to Hartpury College, a respected equine school in southern England. Yang brought the curriculum back and today helps teach the club's 80-strong staff how to care for horses and novice riders. She sees an increasing appreciation for horse welfare among locals. "Yet some regulars have ridden 100 times and still don't know how to put on a bridle. They hand the horse to a groom after riding." Like the athletes they are, jumping horses suffer from torn ligaments and tendons so they've got to be checked every week. Paying for such care justifies lesson fees, often perceived by locals as high. "We keep two vets and a farrier. People can't always see that." Place to be seen Aside from creature comforts Wang has also made the club a place to be seen for members, who drink coffee inside a comfortable clubhouse done in touches of European grandeur. After phenomenal growth up to 2008, membership plateaued during the financial crisis and has been slow to start growing again. Dips in membership have been compensated by a rise in private owners stabling their horses at Equuleus, for a fee. Equuleus regulars fall into two categories: Show offs and those with a passion for horses and saddles. They just break even: They live off income from Shi's decorating business. Members often approach the club for help buying a horse. Beijingers have paid between 50,000 and 100,000 euros for individual beasts. Most of the retired racehorses in the stables come from Macao: There's a misperception that they're all shipped up from Hong Kong but the Hong Kong Jockey Club isn't allowed to sell retired horses. Wang leads a group of club members on a horse-shopping tour of Europe every year. They've traversed the continent since her first such trip in 2001 but have since settled on an itinerary of Belgium, Holland and Germany. "It's the center of Europe so it's easy to travel and the prices are reasonable." French and UK horse breeders have also approached the club seeking to sell trained sport horses, which can sell for between 50,000 and 500,000 euros depending on pedigree. "Most of the time we're looking for a six-year-old or older, since if a horse is very young it's not well trained. An important reason for buying from Europe is that we can buy a trained horse." There's a lot of natural attrition since many who try the sport get lazy or figure it's not for them. What drew them in the first place? "Wanting to show off. Or they've traveled and seen horses or riding clubs in Europe or the US." Equestrian themed fashion shoots in Chinese glossy magazines also help. "Horse riding now is seen as fancy and fashionable," says Wang. Fashion for horses The club's buoyant membership could indeed be partly down to Wang's earlier career: Fashion editors using the club help spread the word with their photo shoots. Photographers are drawn by the sight of grooms in jodhpurs busying themselves with bridles and saddle flaps, lifting the leathers out of the dust and hay seeds. {sidebar id=3}She's become used to media attention: As an editor there's fashion editors and corporate advertisers who'll pay for an equestrian setting for their photos. And while she's happy that some of the journalists want to write lifestyle features she bemoans a local equestrian media that remains nascent - there's a soft- focused monthly Horsemanship magazine. Now Wang wants to formalize her knowledge by studying at Hartpury. The school teaches club owners like her equestrian business management skills. Self-confessed improvement maniac, Wang doesn't plan to do any more construction. But she's germinating an idea of selling her hard-gained knowledge to clubs setting up in other provinces. "Our staff is more professional, thus we can be a leader in this." Whatever she does, horse welfare will come first. "This sport needs a lot of education. So we will still invite people from abroad, and we'll send our staff overseas to learn." Wang's equestrian sensibilities are obviously well honed. But now horses have become a business, Wang would like to be the caring face of the Chinese equestrian business.