Hey there, partner. This is The Oxer by Pegasus. The newsletter that takes you out of your tack room and into the global equestrian industry.
This week, we published our podcast with Shanghai-based Zoé Tingting QUIN 覃婷婷, the founder and CEO of WonderHorse.
In today’s edition, we want to uncover the relatively recent boom of equestrian sports in China.
Before we get into it, have you signed up to try out Pegasus’s beta?
If not, head to Pegasus, click “get early access,” and sign up today!
Without further ado, let’s discover opportunities within China’s equestrian industry 
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💥 China’s Recent Equestrian Boom Can Thank 2008 + Government Policy
2008 was the year in which China had the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. What many do not know, however, is that China as a competitor never competed in Olympic equestrian sports until that same year—highlighting China’s recent arrival to our world.
In just a decade after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the number of equestrian clubs has skyrocketed from 100 to 1,400. It has grown even more than that in the latter half of the 2010s.
It can be said then that the presence of the Olympics in China had a large impact on their burgeouning equestrian scene.
However, the rise of equestrian in China didn’t happen merely because of the presence of the Olympics in 2008.
The Chinese government’s approachto bolstering the equestrian industry has been multi-faceted and strategic, focusing on planning, improving, and promoting the sector to ensure its rapid development and sustainability.
Their initiatives unfolded through various policy releases aimed at establishing a well-defined structure for equestrianism within the national sports reform framework and related horse fields, ultimately fostering the industry’s healthy growth.
A key milestone was the release of Document “No. 46” in October 2014, aimed at supporting the sports industry’s growth, followed by the State Council Document No. 85 in 2015, which provided guidelines for developing the sports service industry. These documents contributed to a surge in investment within the sports sector, aligning with national strategies yet highlighted the challenge of sports venue scarcity.
The 13th Five-Year Plan, introduced by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, emphasized green development and modernization patterns that harmonize human and nature relationships, aligning with equestrianism’s environmentally conscious principles. The plan recognized equestrianism’s potential to promote outdoor recreation, rural development, and cultural preservation, integrating sustainable practices into the national development agenda.
National policies from 2015 onwards actively formulated strategies for equestrian sport development at all government levels. The “National Fitness Plan (2016–2020)” highlighted equestrianism as a sport to be cultivated, supported by the “No. 77” document from the State Council, which forecasted a substantial growth in the sports market.
These policies aimed to decentralize sports activities from urban areas, advocating for the development of equestrianism among other high-value sports industries.
Specific regions with historical ties to horse culture, like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, issued policies to bolster equestrian clubs and related industries, further solidified by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Plan in 2019, which emphasized the growth of equestrian sports and industry cooperation.
🇨🇳 The Rise of Chinese Equestrian Tourism
Show jumping in Hong Kong.
Government planning of the country’s equestrian industry and interest from the 2008 Olympics aren’t the only reasons why horseback riding is growing so rapidly in China. This growth is part of a broader trend of rising affluence and interest in equestrian sports supported by domestic tourism.
Equestrian tourism in China is currently experiencing significant growth, particularly driven by the country’s rich cultural heritage and an increasing interest in outdoor and leisure activities.
The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is highlighted as a focal point for this development, leveraging its extensive history with horses and vast natural landscapes. The region is home to the “Yili Heavenly Horse Species,” a breed renowned both domestically and internationally, underscoring the potential of equestrian tourism in the area.
Xinjiang boasts about 894,000 horses across six breeding farms, making it a leader in China’s horse industry.
Of about 3.67 million horses across two-thirds of the country, more than 100,000 horses are also used for tourism and leisure activities, with 30 million rider experiences every year
Horse tourism throughout the country has had output value of over 60 billion yuan ($8.4 billion).
🏋️♀️ The Challenges Chinese Riders Face Today
All of this is to say that the horse sports that equestrians in the West participate in are relatively new as an industry in China.
It’s not just in China, however, we learned from our feature with Morgan Froment that other countries in the region—such as Thailand or Cambodia—are also rapidly developing their equestrian industries.
What do countries like China, Thailand, and others in the region have in common other than seeking to grow their equestrian industries?
All of them are looking to bring foreign talent to their equestrian hubs.
In our recent interview with Zoe Quin, she mentioned that there are fewer horse trainers from foreign countries in China today than before possibly due to their heavy travel restrictions during the pandemic. Once restrictions were lifted in March of 2023, clubs immediately started looking to hire foreign coaches.
Another point made on the podcast that serves as a challenge in China did not come from our guest but from one of our cohosts, Pegasus cofounder Sam Baynes.
Sam mentioned his thoughts on what an American businessperson would think of doing business in China; or, better said, what an American businessperson would not be able to understand, as they wouldn’t even know where to start.
"If I'm an American [and] I've never done business in China before, my thought process would be that if I sell tack and apparel, then I know for a fact that I probably produced most of my tack and apparel in China. I have it shipped to the States, and then I deliver it to my clients in the States. So I would assume that if I tried to sell the same stuff in China, I would just be undercut by a local seller and a local distributor. And most Americans are very unfamiliar with Chinese geography. The idea of how they go about setting up a business there, do they need to get a special business license? What is the government's role in that business license? Is it dependable or am I going to have my business license taken away from me for some reason I don't understand?"
Mainstream news organizations may play on repeat the narrative of diminishing relations between Western countries and China, yet existing facts prove that the reality is more complicated.
China is introducing alternative market entry options for foreign investors aiming to provide greater flexibility and lower costs. These include services such as Professional Employer Organization (PEO), Exporter of Record (EOR), or Importer of Record (IOR), alongside options like cross-border trade and virtual office services. These emerging alternatives are designed to ease the process of establishing a presence in China.
Albeit true that foreign investment declined in 2023, the tally of newly established foreign businesses surged by 32.1% on an annual basis from January to October 2023, culminating in the registration of 41,947 new foreign-invested enterprises in China.
Though Sam’s point stands in that knowing China’s manufacturing prowess, it is an intimidating prospect to compete as an American tack company selling to the Chinese market when local brands and suppliers know the market a lot more than you do.
Thanks a lot to Zoe for sparking the conversation and be sure to listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Go walk your course,
The Oxer by Pegasus
