When the IOC announced Hong Kong's status as a co-host city on 5 July 2005, The Hong Kong Jockey Club had just two years to produce equestrian venues in time for the 2007 Test Event - and they had to be venues fit for Olympic champions.

With such a short timeframe, four years less than the traditional Olympic schedule, an innovative plan combining existing amenities with those facilities required for the Olympics was drawn up and the result is a magnificent arena with seating for around 18,000 spectators, VIP hospitality and, of course, the competition arena itself.

"The venue itself is compact, so everything has been designed to optimise the space on the site," The Hong Kong Jockey Club's Project Manager for the Olympic venues construction, Julian Wright, said at a briefing for local media.

Surrounded by superb training facilities built by the Club on the Hong Kong Sports Institute and on the Sha Tin Racecourse in-field at Penfold Park, the Olympic arena has been created out of a former football field and athletic track, transforming an area of 105 x 75 metres into an Olympic playing field for the world's best human and equine athletes.

The Olympic Equestrian Venue at Sha Tin is where all but one of the Olympic equestrian events will take place between 9 and 21 August. (The cross-country for the Eventing competition will be held at Beas River on 11 August.) The main arena is the focal point of the Sha Tin venue and, with most of the competitions taking place at night, it needs top-quality floodlighting.

But the sand surface in the Olympic equestrian arena, and in all the training arenas, is one of the most important, if not the most important element in the Hong Kong Olympic Equestrian Venues built by The Hong Kong Jockey Club.

Producing the perfect all-weather surface, known as the footing, is absolutely vital. Not only is the correct footing essential for protecting the horses' legs from injury in the high-impact sport of Jumping, the amount of "spring" in the sand is also important as it allows the dynamic energy used by the horse for jumping to rebound from the surface rather than being absorbed by it.

The footing also has to be structured so that it provides the perfect surface for the very different demands of the Dressage horses, which also require a degree of "spring" in the surface. That "spring" is created by the use of a precise mix of fine quartz sand and imported geotextiles and fibres.

The footing also has to provide a non-slip surface and, equally important, drainage. With the possibility of heavy rainfall during the Olympic Equestrian Events in August, an efficient drainage system is essential. The specialised drainage system produced by the Club's footing experts provides a drainage rate of 100mm per hour, providing the best possible footing, whatever the weather.

But it's not just the multiple layers involved in the construction of the footing that produce this impressive drainage rate. A hydraulic laser leveller is also used to create the perfect "plane" surface. To the naked eye, the sand footing looks as though it is horizontal, but there is actually a 0.5% gradient from a central line running from the middle of the south grandstand to the middle of the north stand. This is the optimal pitch for drainage. Any flatter and there would be the possibility of water pooling on the surface. Any steeper and the top layer of sand could be washed away in very heavy rain.

Even the colour of the sand is important and the Club conducted a special Shadow Test to ensure that the broadcast-quality floodlighting would not create shadowing that could affect the way the horses perform in the Jumping competitions. Horses are particularly susceptible to shadows and have been known to jump shadows or even misjudge the height or width of a fence in Jumping competitions because of shadowing.

"Each and every one of the light bulbs in the floodlights is aimed at a different area on the arena to ensure uniformity of lighting", Wright said.

With the world's best equine athletes training and competing in the Sha Tin venue, nothing can be left to chance.