Wuhan, the only city on China's mainland where horse racing has been legalized, plans to hold races every Friday, China News Service has reported. But the races are temporarily closed to the public.

As yesterday was Qingming Festival, the first weekend race was held on Thursday. Fifty horses participated in five races, striving for titles of 400 meters, 1,000 meters, 1,200 meters and 1,800 meters.

Each jockey can join different races, and trainees have two pounds handicap allowance, while horses are grouped based on their previous performances and allowed to take part in only one race, the report said.

Events are run in accordance with the rules of the China Jockey Association, the news service report said.

Meanwhile, China's top sports administration has approved the mainland's first horse racing lottery that is expected to start in September in Wuhan.

Horse racing and betting on races was in a trial period, Miao Wei, Party secretary of Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, said during a discussion session with the city's top legislative body in January, the government-backed Cnhubei.com reported.

The lottery is expected to attract annual revenue of 100 billion yuan (US$14.25 billion) plus 40 billion yuan in tax revenue, and to generate more than three million jobs, the report said.

China's lotteries have generated huge economic and social returns in the past two decades. A total of 363 billion yuan in lottery tickets had been sold by the end of 2006, and more than a third of the money was spent on public welfare. This included the development of public sports facilities, as well as education and health care for the handicapped.

The country has three types of lotteries - the Welfare Lottery, Sports Lottery and Soccer Lottery.

Buying lottery tickets has also given people the chance to get rich.

An unidentified individual from Gansu Province won the country's largest individual prize of 102.7 million yuan last November.

China decided to move equestrian events for the 2008 Olympics to Hong Kong, which is more than 2,000 kilometers from the host city. The events were moved as horse racing has been forbidden on the mainland since 1949.

However, betting on horses has been a part of life in Hong Kong for more than a century.

(Shanghai Daily April 5, 2008)