Tang Pui-tat was forced out of his position as the result of a rancorous split in the ranks of the Hong Kong Equestrian Federation over whether the equestrian events for the 2008 Olympic Games should be brought to the SAR.

Tang was unavailable for comment. "We can't find him,'' said a secretary at the federation's headquarters.

Tang astonished members some months ago by publicly opposing bringing the equestrian events to Hong Kong after they had been attempting for years to woo them to the territory.

"He has been outspoken with views which were negative about the Olympic Games coming to Hong Kong,'' said a highly placed officer of the society. "We had a secretary general who was a very powerful man. He incensed so many members that he was forced out. He stepped down from the federation as well.''

The Hong Kong dressage community is small but exclusive, with only about 300 members, most of them extremely wealthy. It is headed by Hong Kong Jockey Club chairman Ronald Arculli, one of the city's most prominent citizens.

The horses, trained in exhaustive exercises including dressage and show jumping, can cost up to US$1 million (HK$7.8 million). Keeping them in stables in the New Territories is fabulously expensive. They are carefully coiffed and clad, as are their jodhpur-wearing riders.Training the horses in their routines takes hours daily. These routines have been likened to a kind of slow-motion ballet representing the highest level of training possible for an animal such as a horse.

To onlookers, however, it is not particularly lively, and its appeal is confined to a relatively small segment of society. The International Olympic Committee increasingly agrees with that opinion. The IOC is said to want to drop it for more watchable events, which ironically may give Hong Kong its best chance to host it - in that the committee will let the event go forward one more time.

But it probably cannot go forward in Beijing in any case. Equine diseases are rampant in China and the facilities necessary for keeping such pampered four-legged athletes are lacking. Hong Kong, some 2,000 kilometers from the site of the rest of the games, is probably the only viable locale in China for the three-day event.

If Hong Kong does swing it, however, the Jockey Club estimates that it will spend as much as HK$900 million to HK$1.2 billion on facilities, with government costs in the tens of millions as well. In exchange, it is estimated Hong Kong will derive only around HK$300 million in economic benefit.

Tang, said one member of the club, ``kept questioning whether it was worth it, saying it would cost too much money and nobody was going to watch.''

That was a statement that did not sit well with the members, who, according to two of them, were already resentful because of what they said was Tang's rather autocratic style.

``Everybody I ever spoke to thought it was a wonderful idea,'' said one equestrienne who prefers not to be named.

``To be honest, the rank and file of the membership were surprised to see that he had made those statements because we all thought it would be wonderful - wonderful for Hong Kong and wonderful for the federation.''

With or without Tang, the question of whether the event will come to Hong Kong remains up in the air, probably until after a meeting of the International Equestrian Federation in Singapore.

``I think we are in the middle of discussions,'' said Catherin Norinder, manager of the Olympic Department of the international federation in Lausanne, Switzerland. ``We have no comment.''john.berthelsen@singtaonewscorp.com