Eleven race meetings have been abandoned in the past 16 weeks. Photo / NZ Racing Desk
Eleven race meetings have been abandoned in the past 16 weeks. Photo / NZ Racing Desk
New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing cannot afford the complete funding to keep all of New Zealand's racetracks at a level that will avoid costly recent abandonments of meetings.
NZTR chief executive Greg Purcell has been responding to demands for an end to the circumstances leading to a plethora of abandonments - 11 meetings in the last 16 weeks.
The background is: racing in all three codes in New Zealand is controlled by the NZ Racing Board, responsible for the galloping, harness and greyhound codes.
The Racing Board collects all monies and distributes it as it sees fit.
There have been mounting tensions, certainly at NZTR, at how the money is apportioned.
"Betting revenue has gone up 9.9 per cent, but in three years costs have risen by 8.6 per cent," says Purcell. "NZTR gets 0.6 per cent increase a year and every dollar we get is pulled five competing ways. There is prizemoney, infrastructure costs, racing club funding, track maintenance and marketing, none of which are funded to our satisfaction."
Last Saturday's abandonment of Awapuni's $100,000 Manawatu Cup day, later reinstated as a postponement until Sunday, has cranked up awareness of repeating problems and at 10am today a meeting has been called to examine the causative factors leading to the problem. At that meeting will be trainers, jockeys, club representatives, Integrity Unit representatives, racing stewards and the special guest will be one of the world experts on track maintenance, John Jeffs. He was the longtime track curator at Sydney's Rosehill course before moving to the same position in Hong Kong.
Purcell: "The first decision to be made will be whether Awapuni is safe to race on Boxing Day. Then a complete look back at what issues led to Saturday's postponement. Also a look at our abandonment processes: are we doing that right?"
What has been lacking in previous such inquiries, mostly less robust, is accountability to any issue that led to a problem. Greg Purcell says that will not be the case this time.
"There have been issues with Awapuni in terms of track camber, which has been largely managed with running rail shifts. We will be looking at the total package around Awapuni and we have committed to finding the appropriate funding to put things right. It is one of our 16 designated strategic racetracks and is important to the industry."
Which brings up the issues around the number of New Zealand racetracks - 52, which is way too many. England has 60 racetracks for 53 million population and Canada, a country into which you could put about 40 New Zealands, has 14 registered racecourses.
The biggest betting in the world is in Hong Kong, which has two racecourses, Shatin and Happy Valley, and Singapore has just one.
Korea, the world's fourth biggest betting nation, has three tracks.
Purcell was not keen to be quoted on centralisation, which historically in New Zealand has proved to be more sensitive than brain surgery.
Mass centralisation does not come without problems, but carefully planned reduction has to be addressed. Taranaki and the South Island's West Coast are classic examples. Taranaki has Hawera, Stratford and New Plymouth within close proximity. Does the West Coast really need Greymouth, Hokitika, Kumara and Westport when between them the quartet race only a handful of days a year.
The cost of maintenance in both areas cannot be sustained and nor can safety be guaranteed at the present level of funding. Folklore has it the late Sir Robert Muldoon was invited to what was meant to be the last ever Kumara race meeting. Washing down the final whitebait fritter with a gin, Sir Rob promised Kumara would not only survive, but thrive.
