Ka Ying is Rising and Rising. But Hong Kong is flat.

Hans Ebert

Sep 7

5 min read

At least to me, Ka Ying Rising transcends being another champion galloper, and the challenge for the Hong Kong Jockey Club is to understand that this is 2026, Hong Kong is no longer seen by the world as “Asia’s World City”, and for communications to matter, this needs to be more than TikTok moments on X and some content on a website.

Communications- effective communications- is more important than ever before, often because of so much clutter hiding life priorities, and I often wonder how many whose work is in communications realise this.

Hong Kong’s current image as a tourist destination is nebulous at best, no matter what numbers are trotted out and new campaigns are warmed up and served for public consumption.

Six year old Ka Ying Rising is a global equine hero who has had enough column inches written about him with most of these having come from the racing media for those who follow and live and breathe horse racing, especially Hong Kong racing.

Knowing something about how horse racing stories are accepted by a bigger mainstream audience, these are often about as important as Brother James Brown preaching to the Ku Klux Klan from Da Funky Bunch Pulpit Of Da Punt.

After all, how many ways can one say the same old things and the same old way that here’s a an exceptional galloper from Hong Kong and owned by Hong Kong Chinese- and sure, there are the detractors- who might just be the greatest racehorse ever and is a winning machine?

The real question for everyone in this global audience as opposed to racing fans, is, What’s next and where is everything going that might be of interest to ME?

Marketing is not a press release, and the marketing of Ka Ying Rising should, by now, have outgrown and outperformed what racing scribes describe as “racing content” and is posted on what calls itself “social media” where those self styled gurus on life offer their comments on how everything should be.

Like an ass hole, everyone has an opinion- and like anything on every online platform, whatever is there is as memorable as the latest nuclear level announcement of stupidity from the delusional old guy having diaper rash and carrying on running America into the ground.

The world should be reminded about a Hong Kong hero like Ka Ying Rising and his internationalism, meaning the team around him including Australian trainer and jockey- David Hayes and Zac Purton, respectively- and those from Hong Kong including the champion galloper’s owners- and have even a modicum of interest in knowing the difference between ka-ching and Ka Ying.

Though there are those who always go to the same old well and write how another record has been “smashed”, how much prize money this horse has won so far, and though these numbers might be impressive, mentioning them over and over and over and over again can come across sounding tiresome and rather gauche.

It can take away from the aspirational and inspirational value and significance of Ka Ying Rising’s on course successes and talent- and how this translates into something of significance.

Here is, in many ways to Hong Kong, the new Bruce Lee, and as an equine hero, he’s taking on all comers in his world while breaking down doors that might inspire new generation of young human entrepreneurs to create different jade pillars of opportunity.

Perhaps this next idea will have some choking on their wontons and dim sums, but why can’t everything being promoted as unique to Hong Kong in the new tourism campaign for the city under the “Only in Hong Kong” banner, not have an alternative campaign- one that shows the city’s famous cuisine and other attractions that fall into the well worn out basket of clichés, but in a way that’s thought provoking or provocative?

Why not have all these somewhat stale dim sums and then sums elevated and p”marketed as being “From the city that gave the world Ka Ying Rising”?

Think an advertising campaign straight out of left field like this won’t have people from around the world talking- and help shine a new light on Hong Kong as a city deserving of a second look AND its horse racing and giving the equine winning machine a PERSONALITY?

Though having created the Happy Wednesday brand for the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the term “Canto Pop”, both were ynot exactly things that would go into my Big Book Of Successes. Helping former NASA engineer and visionary businessman Daniel Ng to launch McDonald’s in Hong Kong would be the one success story flying right up there.

On this subject, there’s something about the Ka Ying Rising story that is yet to be told and which I would want as part of my legacy and gift to Hong Kong.

One cannot help but wonder what the “Mad Man” television series adman character who took the name Don Draper might have done to give the city a pulse?

Hong Kong that once boasted larger than life game changers like brilliant graphic designer Henry Steiner, Sir Run Run Shaw, Sir David Tang, film director Poh Chih Leung and admen like Mike Chu and a couple of others, has been going through creative menopause for a seemingly disturbing amount of time.

Getting back to Ka Ying Rising, there’s a need for a different mindset from those who know that there’s got to be something more than another line of plush toys, a Ka Ying K-Pop song or some piece of fluff for the poseurs of the Selfie Generation.

Surely, there’s room for something that taps into the imagination of people and which fills them with the inspiration to become better people and more than they are?

Yes, horse racing can make this happen by leaders who can lead and know those who are creative and productive and experienced hires and those who are poseurs living off past successes.

Personally speaking, I would love to see or create and produce a story that follows the friendship between the recently retired Romantic Warrior and Ka Ying Rising, and not really that dissimilar to the old American television series about the talking horse named Mr Ed.

Imagine the stories they could tell each other!!! About their favourite races! The riders!!!!What did they think of the humans in their lives and what was going through their minds during their biggest races?

There could be cameos by other Hong Kong equine heroes like Silent Witness, Pakistan Star, Bullish Luck, Good Ba Ba etc currently enjoying their retirement in the golden pond of Living Legends and with those wonderful human friends around them.

There could be so much more- and with interactivity, engagement and what it takes to be a legend…