Racing: Cash grant paves way for club's new gates

Whangarei Racing Club are in line for new starting gates as a result of a $42,000 grant, courtesy of the Government's Racing Safety and Development Fund.

Racing Minister Nathan Guy has announced that 11 projects to improve safety and development at racecourses across the country will receive an aggregate total of $296,400 from the 2014/15 round of grants.

"This year's second funding round has supported a wide range of infrastructure projects including storm water upgrade, new starting gates, sand track fencing, and a greyhound lure rail upgrade," he said.

Whangarei Racing Club's portion of the grant will prove useful for the Ruakaka racecourse which relies on an older system of starting gate.

Karen Houlihan, Whangarei Racing Club's finance and projects manager, said the club now needs to raise the other half of the required sum for the project to go ahead.

"There's been trouble around the old tracks' starting gates not opening properly," she said. "If they don't open properly it can hurt the horse and the jockey."

Houlihan indicated the newer starting gates, which are widely used in Australia, will be "more reliable, therefore we want have those issues".

Whangarei Racing Club will be one of the first in the northern region to get the new starting gates.