Conghua Racecourse

The Hong Kong Jockey Club's mainland racecourse

Conghua Racecourse (从化马场) is a thoroughbred training and racing facility in Conghua district, north of Guangzhou in mainland China, built and operated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. It exists to give Hong Kong's racehorses a second base on the mainland: horses can be trained, rested and prepared there under the same standards as at Sha Tin, without crossing the border for every move. The Club's own site for the venue still leads with the memory of its Exhibition Race Day, the one-off showcase held there in 2019⁵.

The bigger story is what the venue is becoming. From 2026, Conghua is scheduled to hold regular race meetings, making it the first place in mainland China to host regularly scheduled international-level thoroughbred racing⁶. That is a genuine first. Mainland China has racecourses, and has had them for decades, but none has ever run a regular program of top-level racing. The Hong Kong Jockey Club confirmed as early as 2021 that Conghua would begin regular racing, with 2025 as the initial target year⁷, and the plan was later restated for the 2025/2026 season, when Conghua would join Sha Tin and Happy Valley as a third regular venue⁸.

The racing itself is the same product Hong Kong fans know: international-level thoroughbred racing with the Club's jockeys, trainers and horses. What makes Conghua different from Sha Tin and Happy Valley is everything around the racing, and above all the fact that there is no betting, which we come to below.

Race dates and the October postponement

The schedule has shifted several times, so it is worth knowing the timeline before you plan around a date.

The Club originally aimed to start regular racing at Conghua in 2025⁷, then tied the start to the 2025/2026 season⁸. When the first regular meeting was set for April 2026, it was pushed back six months to October 2026⁹. By early 2026 the plan was firm: regular speed racing events would officially begin at the end of October 2026, the first regularly held international-level thoroughbred racing on the mainland¹⁰.

Then came another delay. In September 2026 the Hong Kong Jockey Club announced that the activities planned for October at Conghua would be postponed, following a risk assessment by mainland authorities². No new date was given in that announcement, so the October 31 date circulating in racing media¹¹ should be treated as provisional until the Club confirms it.

The provisional schedule for the 2026/27 season includes four race meetings at Conghua, with the tentative dates below¹.

If you want to attend, the practical advice is simple: check the Hong Kong Jockey Club's official announcements close to the date, because this calendar has already moved more than once.

One detail worth knowing if you plan to watch from Hong Kong rather than attend in person: Conghua races will be broadcast to a wider audience, but with a delay, a measure designed to reduce the risk of illegal betting on the races¹².

No betting at Conghua races

This is the point that most often surprises people who know Hong Kong racing, so it deserves its own section: there is no betting at Conghua.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club has said plainly that no betting services will be offered at Conghua races³. The meetings are positioned as sport, with no betting element at all¹². That was equally true of the 2019 Exhibition Race Day, where five races were held and no betting was offered⁴, and of the demonstration races held at the venue, which likewise could not be wagered on¹³.

This is not a temporary arrangement or a soft launch restriction. It follows directly from where the racecourse stands, and the next section explains why.

For comparison, if you want to bet on Hong Kong racing, you do it in Hong Kong, at Sha Tin or Happy Valley race meetings, at off-course betting branches, or through the Club's telephone and online channels. The Club's betting operation covers horse racing, football and a lottery, and it does not accept bets from anyone under 18, nor any credit betting. None of that extends to Conghua race days.

Racing as a sport: the legal position in mainland China

The reason Conghua races run without betting is that gambling is illegal in mainland China, with Macau as the exception¹⁴. Horse racing as a spectacle is not; that is the whole design of the Conghua project. Regular racing there is explicitly framed as sport with no betting component¹².

Mainland China has tried to get closer to racing betting before, and the history explains why the current arrangement is so carefully drawn. Horse racing at the old Guangzhou Racecourse stopped in 1999 mainly because it had no legal operating status at the time¹⁵. A trial of racing was under study before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but never received formal approval¹⁵. The Guangzhou venue was later described in mainland press as the only racecourse on the mainland with a betting character, a reputation that came from an off-course betting operation that once ran alongside its races¹⁶. That experiment ended when racing itself was never legalized, which is cited as the main reason racing stopped there¹⁷.

The line today is drawn clearly. Online football betting in China is treated as a criminal offense¹⁸, and no form of commercial gambling is licensed on the mainland. So the Hong Kong Jockey Club's mainland racing is built to sit entirely on the legal side: horses, jockeys, races and spectators, but no wagering. If you are curious about what gambling does exist legally in mainland China, it is limited to state lotteries, which we cover in our guide to gambling in China.

Location, travel and facilities

Conghua Racecourse sits in Conghua district, north of Guangzhou, about 150 kilometers north of the Hong Kong border. Driving there from Sha Tin takes about three hours⁹. One unusual detail: the site is located within a military no-fly zone⁴, which is why you will not see aerial coverage of the venue.

The venue was built as a full training center first, with racing added on top. Its public grandstand was reported in March 2025 as due for completion in November of that year⁴, so by now the spectator infrastructure should be in place. What a race day there actually looks and feels like for the general public is still something of an open question, since the regular meetings have not yet run; the only full-scale preview was the 2019 Exhibition Race Day with its five races⁴.

For now, treat any trip as a mainland China trip in the practical sense: you cross the border, you travel by road or rail to Conghua, and you need the travel documents you would need for any visit to Guangzhou. Allow the best part of a day for travel if you are coming from Hong Kong.

Role alongside Sha Tin and Happy Valley

Conghua's day-to-day role is as a training center that takes pressure off Sha Tin. Hong Kong's racing population has outgrown what one racecourse can comfortably handle, and Conghua gives trainers a second base with full facilities, plus a venue for barrier trials and preparation work between race meetings.

On race days, the plan is for Conghua to form a triangle with Sha Tin and Happy Valley as the third regular venue of Hong Kong racing⁸. The two Hong Kong venues keep their familiar roles: Sha Tin as the main track for most of the season, Happy Valley as the city-center Wednesday night track. Conghua adds a small number of mainland meetings to that calendar, four in the provisional 2026/27 schedule¹.

For Hong Kong Jockey Club members, the membership structure is unchanged by Conghua. Racing Members may use the Members' Enclosures at Happy Valley and Sha Tin during all race meetings, along with the exclusive boxes at both racecourses, and can buy admission badges for guests¹⁹. Whether a similar members' facility operates at Conghua is one of the details still to be confirmed once regular racing actually begins.

Before you plan a trip

A few practical points to hold onto:

• Confirm the date first. The October 2026 event was postponed after a risk assessment by mainland authorities², and the whole calendar has slipped more than once since 2021. Check the Hong Kong Jockey Club's announcements shortly before you book anything.
• Expect sport, not a betting day out. No betting services will be offered at Conghua races³. If wagering is part of what you want from a race day, Sha Tin Racecourse and Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong are where that happens.
• Budget a full day for travel. The venue is about 150 kilometers north of the border and roughly a three-hour drive from Sha Tin⁹.
• Watch from Hong Kong if you prefer. Conghua races will be broadcast to a wider audience, though with a delay built in to reduce illegal betting risk¹².
• Remember where you are. The racecourse is in mainland China, where gambling is illegal outside the state lotteries¹⁴. Betting on the Conghua races through any unofficial channel, online or otherwise, is not a gray area; online betting is treated as a criminal offense in the mainland¹⁸.

The short version: Conghua Racecourse is a genuinely new thing, the first regular international-level thoroughbred racing venue in mainland China, run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club but deliberately stripped of the betting that defines racing in Hong Kong. Whether the first regular meeting happens on October 31, 2026 or slips again, the project itself is not in doubt; only the date is.