Chairman Hyun Myung-kwan of the Korea Racing Authority.

Chairman and CEO Hyun Myung-kwan of the Korea Racing Authority (KRA) said, “Change everything, except horses,” as he took the helm of KRA as the chairman.

He knows well what it means because he was the chief secretary to Chairman Lee Kun-hee when he announced the start of a huge reform of Samsung Group with the announcement, “Change everything, except your wives and children,” back in 1993. Chairman Hyun wants to reform KRA a lot bigger than what the KRA employees expected to occur when the new chairman took office last December.

Some 500 employees of KRA signed an agreement to normalize the loose operation of KRA on March 30. KRA cut the welfare benefits given to each employee from 9.19 million won per year to 5.47 million won per year, a reduction of 47 percent.

The horseracing parks operator and racehorse breeder also declared the 10 Major Reform Tasks, which includes such provisions as further growth of the horse industry, diversification of its operation, and plans to excite its customers, among others.

“Reform is only the beginning,” said the chairman. He means to change KRA drastically as KRA’s welfare measures have been called excessive compared to similar state-run firms, and KRA’s annual turnover has been stagnant over the past three years with the horseracing operator earning a negative public image as a luxury gambling sport rather than a sound leisure sport. “If the present conditions continue for KRA, it will go out of business,” the chairman warned.

He told local media in an interview that he had talks with the union telling them that the crux of the problem is not the cuts in scholarships for their children or expenses for gifts, but KRA’s loss of public trust, which could endanger the existence of KRA. Therefore, he said, KRA should show its readiness for reform before any other state-run companies do, to which the union agreed.

Hyun said education is one of the most important areas of reform that he will push because he saw the employees who are hired through very tough exams and interviews rarely further their talents and lose their competitive abilities because they settle down with daily chores for the KRA in the absence of challenges. What is more important than the scholarships to their children is education of the employees, the chairman said.

“The employees will do their jobs better and can easily land jobs when they quit KRA with the first-rate education they got here. We plan to train the personnel at KRA so they can be very competitive handling the horses and horseracing in global terms,” the chairman said.

Horses are involved in a number of industries, such as breeding, horseracing, management of racing parks, horseback riding as a leisure activity, and therapy for youths by horseback riding, and thus creates enough jobs to be a core area for the Creative Economy drive pushed by the government.

Looking at advanced countries, golf is a major sport where the per-capita income is in the range of $20,000 and it will be the horseback riding when it goes up to the $30,000 range. Hyun figures horseback riding will be a general sport enjoyed by the general public in two to three years in Korea with an increasing number of youths taking it up as their sport and after-school classes for the sport are now being held for students.

Hyun said he is against the government’s requirement that buyers of horseracing tickets have electronic cards with their personal information. He said already the sale of horseracing tickets at a number of racetracks around the country, including those in Daegu, Changwon, and Incheon, are down more than 20 percent and the electronic cards will force the sales figures to slide even further to the extent that it would arouse the fear that the horseracing business will go extinct. It would affect the government income and the funds for the growth of farm and animal husbandry businesses, Hyun warned.