Six races, 6000 people: Hawke's Bay's New Year's Day races quandary

Lots of people at the New Year's Day Races in Hastings, but gazebos and marquees outnumbered the horses. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hawke's Bay Racing believes it is still backing a winner with the New Year's Day races in Hastings despite industry struggles which meant there were just six races and fewer than 50 horses at the big event on Friday.

The number of horses was barely a quarter of the numbers there in the meeting's heyday but new Hawke's Bay Racing chief executive Darin Balcombe said crowd numbers and betting turnovers "still stacked up" and there was no question of abandoning a traditional annual day-out which dated back to the mid-1800s.

Hawke's Bay Racing will still be looking at ways to enhance the day out, including possibly returning harness racing – otherwise known as "the trots" – to Hawke's Bay after an absence of more than 20 years.

Early hopes for 5000-6000 people on course were met, and betting turnover was about $170,000, about a third of which was on races at other venues, mainly New Year's Day at Ellerslie, and Riverton, in Southland.

Jess Timms, front left, and Connie Chrystal, from Napier, backed Race 3 winner Faye Lazet on Pablo Esk. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hawke's Bay Racing had programmed eight races for the day, but the minimal number of nominations meant there were just six, with those cancelled including a $15,000 open sprint that attracted just four nominations.

All 56 horses nominated for the day's racing were accommodated in the fields, but scratchings meant just 49 started – a far cry from when Hawke's Bay had a two-day New Year race meeting, with eight races on each day, coinciding with a similar meeting at Tauherenikau, between Greytown and Featherston.

This year there have been race meetings in the Central Districts on seven of the past eight days, including gallops and harness racing at Tauherenikau on Saturday and Otaki on Monday. The next race-day is on Saturday at Awapuni, Palmerston North.

Balcombe said HBR would look at including harness racing to boost the number of races at the New Year's day meeting. This year's meeting was over in just three hours, with the first race at 1.40pm and the last at 4.40pm.

Though harness racing has a history in Hawke's Bay dating back at least 1891, there has been none for 22 years.

The most recent era started with equalisator betting races at the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds in 1978, graduating to on-course-only totalisator betting at the club's annual two-day meeting from 1980 to 1988.

Moving to the racecourse with on-and-off-course betting and a Hawke's Bay Harness Racing Club merger with other racing clubs to create Hawke's Bay Racing Inc, the last full harness racing meeting in Hastings was in 1997, although four races were incorporated with gallops at Hastings in October 1998.

Balcombe says HBR will go through its regular review, and he is keen to listen to any ideas about how the New Year's Day races can be strengthened.

He said among the issues limiting the meeting in the modern era was an insufficient number of jockeys available to ride at the meetings as they clash through the period, while other issues facing the meetings surround whether there are too many race meetings, and extra costs facing trainers, including staff on statutory holidays.

It has to be balanced with the needs of other race meetings and areas, and he said: "Everyone wants to race on the public holidays."

The richest race on Friday, with a total of $15,000 in stakes, had just five starters and was won by Hawke's Bay galloper Pablo Esk, trained at Hastings by Mark Warren. Three of the other five races were won by horses from three different stables, travelling from Waikato.

There were 14 race-days scheduled for Hastings in the calendar from August 1 to July 31, some with links with the Waipukurau, Wairoa and Poverty Bay racing clubs, all of which had race days on their own courses scrapped by national authority New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing amid a racing industry shakeup last year.

The next racing in Hastings will be on January 28; the Wairoa Cup will be part of a day dedicated to Wairoa on February 21, and the Poverty Bay Cup will be raced at Hastings on April 17.