Super Zoo

Suming was training Da Kuaihuo and Shibaolong with Tony on a large grassland in the Yangchuan City Zoo. Tony now had dual roles, Suming's private jet technician, and horse trainer. He spent most of his time staying at the zoo, living with Liang Shi and Mr. Peng in the Mingqing Residence.

It could be said that Shuomingqing Residence was practically turning into staff dormitories, with Su Desheng, who led the construction team, sometimes borrowing a bed after work. Nangong Huang had long since moved in: Whisperwind Pavilion was under construction and not suitable for living.

After all, Da Kuaihuo and Shibaolong were racehorses. Cultivating a group of good racehorses was not a simple matter of free-range care. It was not enough to just give them freedom, much like athletes, who must have professional coaches, professional training, and even personalized diet plans. If the two horses were left to their own ways, not to mention improvement, it would be difficult to even maintain their current level. They would be waiting to grow fat and flabby.

In fact, after just a month of living freely, these two rogues had already started to put on weight.

Ever since the second brother and Pig Old Two, the reserve mounts, were taken back to the zoo by Suming and let loose on the back mountain, the two horses became reluctant to play with the alpacas.

When animals make friends, in some respects, it is similar to humans' friendships based on matching social statuses. Perhaps feeling that the alpacas were too low-end and not in the same league as 'mounts,' Da Kuaihuo and Shibaolong became good friends with two wild boars instead.

Although the wild boars were spare mounts, they were still part of the mount ranks, after all. Playing with them didn't seem to lower their status too much.

Playing with the alpacas, the two racehorses learned how to spit water, which wasn't too bad; it just made them seem a bit roguish. But as the saying goes, you become like those you associate with. The two hefty horses followed the wild boars around the back mountain all day, eating nonstop from morning to night.

Worse yet, the boars had exceptionally keen noses, able to root out food buried underground. With the back mountain rich in resources, it was virtually a food warehouse. Every day, the boars would lead the way searching for food, with the two horses following behind to snack as they went.

Watching the two formerly majestic purebred racehorses evolve towards becoming 'enhanced version' big pigs, Tony was deeply troubled.

As Suming's private horse trainer, Tony approached Suming with the suggestion to take the two horses back to the Xiangjiang Jockey Club for training.

Originally, Suming had indeed planned it this way, to let the two horses play in the zoo for a while, then send them back to the club for training.

But now, having grown wild from their time playing, the two horses didn't seem too willing to go back. And their owners, Suming and Nangong Yan, were also reluctant to let them go.

Which Huaxia man didn't have the dream, when he was a child, of a valiant horse and unrestrained singing? Which Huaxia woman hasn't fantasized about a prince arriving on a white horse?

If it weren't for traffic regulations, Suming would've simply replaced his Wrangler with Shibaolong. With the real horse, who needed a faux Wrangler? Even though he could not ride it on the streets, he would sneak out every now and then late at night for a lap around the city loop.

As for future competitions, whether they could win places or earn prize money, Suming hadn't thought too much about it. But Tony had a point, they couldn't just watch the two horses become super-sized pigs.

Fortunately, what the zoo had in abundance was open space. About a third of the whole zoo was a scenic area, with vast expanses of woods and grasslands. Suming simply allocated about twenty acres of grassland, enclosed it with fences as a training ground, and specially built two horse sheds for Tony to train in. Da Kuaihuo and Shibaolong at last had a proper home.

With minimal changes to the grassland, the inner circle remained a lawn but added several rows of wooden fences of various heights and shapes as obstacles. The outer circle had its grass removed and was covered with sand, forming a circular racetrack.

The horses had gotten a bit fat, but they were not lazy. Racing blood naturally flowed in their veins, and they quickly adapted to the training life. Da Kuaihuo elegantly strolled around the inner circle, undergoing obstacle training; Shibaolong, with a more exuberant nature, raced around the outer track wildly.

Two horses were being trained here, attracting many tourists who leaned on the surrounding fence, watching with great interest.

Some regular visitors of the zoo recognized Suming and, seeing that he was also there, went up to him with a cheerful greeting, asking if the Yangchuan City Zoo was planning to set up an equestrian club.

"Not for the time being," Suming replied.

When he first created the 'Riding Fish' project, he had asked Wang Hao to order a batch of 'saddles.' Wang Hao thought he was setting up a riding school and specifically advised him to drop the idea.

Horsemanship is an elegant sport, a gentleman's sport, and a show-off sport, but it also means it's a 'very expensive' sport. Unlike those tourist spots where you ride a horse for photos or ride an old horse for a few steps, a truly classy horse farm requires an investment calculated in millions, renting venues, purchasing racehorses, hiring professional jockeys, and the annual maintenance costs are also scarily high.

In contrast to high investment are low returns.

The sport of horse riding has not become widespread in the country, with high membership fees and certain risks involved in the sport, all of which greatly limit the promotion of riding clubs, even the state has not taken any special measures to promote this activity.

There is a professional horse farm in the suburbs of Yangchuan City, owned by someone from Xiangjiang, who knows Wang Jian She. It's said that when the farm was first established, they invested over eight million at once, with annual expenses of over a million, yet the profit model is very limited, relying mostly on a membership system, with the highest level of VIP membership fee being only twelve thousand. On average, they only gain thirty to forty new members a year, and members continuously drop out, unable to make a profit.

Fortunately, that owner has other profitable main businesses, and running the horse farm is purely a personal interest.

This is the realistic situation of horse farms in the country, including in super-large cities such as Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou, where equestrian clubs rarely make a profit and are wholly dependent on subsidies from the owners' main businesses to continue operating.

Suming had specially asked Wang Hao to help compile statistics that those willing to pay for an annual membership at the Horse Club had personal annual incomes of at least three hundred thousand, and if it were a family, the total family income would generally exceed one million. Such people are not uncommon in Yangchuan City, but among them, those who are passionate about horse riding are extremely rare.

With a small target audience and low popularization, setting up an equestrian club now doesn't seem to have much of a future.

However, not setting one up now doesn't mean it will never happen. The zoo is planning to become a large tourist area, and having a professional horse farm would add to its appeal.

Suming was pondering over the grand blueprint for the future when his phone rang—it was Mrs. Tong calling.

"Director, where are you? Hurry up and check online, that Little Overlord is causing trouble on Weibo again!" Mrs. Tong said urgently.

"This is never going to end, is it!" Suming exclaimed in anger.

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I must say a word: The college entrance exam has started, and the high school entrance exam is approaching. I hope that friends who are in these two stages focus on your exams! I wish you good results... Anyway, I've never done well myself, so my hopes are pinned on you~~~