500 Macau canidrome dogs to live in lap of canine luxury courtesy of unlikely partnership
Billionaire businesswoman Angela Leong On-kei and rights activist Albano Martins team up to build home for displaced animals after closure of Asia’s last legal dog racing track
The meteoric rise of Macau to the top of world gaming – in a fraction of the time it took Las Vegas to pull off the same trick – indicates it is a city where pretty much anything is possible.
But the former Portuguese enclave, which has seen its fair share of risky relationships and unlikely partnerships, on Friday witnessed the coming together of two public figures which only weeks ago no sane bookmaker would have offered you odds on.
At a well-heeled press conference in a five-star hotel on Taipa island, Angela Leong On-kei – one of Macau’s most powerful businesswomen and fourth wife of gaming tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun – joined hands with redoubtable animal rights activist Albano Martins to announce a bold plan to secure the future of more than 500 greyhound racing dogs.
The pair are set to build a new facility where – even if the animals fail to leave for an adoptive home – they will be able to live out their days in the lap of canine luxury.
Leong’s Macau (Yat Yuen) Canidrome Company, which has long been the target of animal maltreatment accusations by Anima – the rights group Martins heads – said the two organisations would create a new International Centre for the Rehoming of Greyhounds on a plot of land not far from the glitzy casino towers of the Cotai Strip.
