Racing eyes return as the TAB makes redundancies

Horse racing bosses are eyeing possible earlier returns to the track as the axe falls on nearly a third of New Zealand’s TAB employees.

The TAB (temporarily known as the Racing Industry Transition Agency) told its staff yesterday around 30 per cent of its work force will be made redundant in costcutting after the financial disaster of Covid-19.

Not only did the TAB lose all New Zealand racing for six weeks and faces possibly two months before thoroughbred racing returns, it also lost the betting turnover on almost all sport worldwide.

That has brought to a head its financial struggles in recent years.

With returns to the three racing codes diminishing there have been widespread calls for significant reduction of the TAB’s costs and yesterday that axe fell.

Already many contractors have been laid off but remaining salaried staff have been informed there are 160 more roles to be cut, with voluntary redundancies offered.

TAB bosses were unable to be contacted for comment last night.

While the TAB is set to reduce costs, the racing industry has restarted, with greyhound racing on Tuesday and harness racing scheduled for May 29.

The thoroughbred industry has not given up on potentially resuming racing earlier than their scheduled July 3 date.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing chief executive Bernard Saundry told licence holders yesterday they will survey trainers to see how many horses are in work and could be ready for an earlier resumption, possibly in late June.

“We have had almost 300 replies from trainers about horse numbers and when they think they will be ready to race and we are going to survey even more trainers in the next few days,” said Saundry.

If smaller meetings with decent numbers could potentially be carded then thoroughbred racing has at least a chance of returning earlier.

Training at New Zealand’s largest facility, Cambridge, is going smoothly under the new Covid-19 protocols.

“It feels almost like normal, with less horses and everybody is paying strict attention to the new rules,” says Cambridge trainer Tony Pike.

“We have jumpouts here on May 23, trials at Te Rapa on June 9 and by then we should know whether we could race earlier.”