"You have got horses coming here who are worth 14-15 million euros (22-23.5 million dollars)," said John Ridley, deputy venue manager for the Jockey Club. "And 90 percent of them are not kept in stables up to the standards you will see here."
The event was switched from Beijing to the southern Chinese city because of fears of disease, and has given the horse racing-mad city a chance to show that it can embrace a different form of equine competition.
There were fears that Hong Kong's residents would be apathetic about the intricacies of the unfamiliar competitions, but Ridley insists the low attendance figures at last year's test event would not be repeated.
"So far there have been 110,000 tickets released to Hong Kong and they have all gone," he said.
Ridley added that although the Jockey Club will not be running the competition at this summer's Games, it will be in charge of prosaic back-up services such as catering and waste disposal.
"I have a feeling we are going to be pretty darn busy," said the Australian.
The Jockey Club -- which runs a horse racing monopoly in Hong Kong and is one of the city's biggest taxpayers and philanthropic donors, took over the conversion of a site adjacent to one of its tracks at Shatin in the northern New Territories.
It also converted part of a golf course for the cross-country element of the three-day eventing competition.
The stables feature every perk for the horses, from the supporting floor made out of recycled tyres, to centrally controlled air-conditioning, all monitored 24-hours a day by a CCTV network.
"This is a six-star stables for the horses," said Tony Shea, the Olympic stable manager. "They are better than my own flat."
Perhaps the biggest X-factor in the success of this summer's events will be something the Jockey Club cannot control -- the sultry weather, and the effect it will have on the priceless animals.
An army of vets, an air-conditioned indoor training centre -- a first at the Olympics -- and a late-night and early morning schedule have all been incorporated to keep the horses safe.
The organisers have even designed their own turbo-powered fans for a mobile cooling unit, which will douse the horses and their riders in a mist after they have competed to try to negate the effects of Hong Kong's August humidity.
Chris Riggs, the Club's head of veterinary services, said every step has been taken to ensure the horses' safety if any extreme weather hits, and contingency days had been built into the programme.
"There is no reason to expect that we will see more withdrawals than we would normally expect in a competition of this type," he said.
