Race on for survival
Today’s Riverton Cup meeting is one of Southland’s biggest race days. But just how many more meetings will remain in the province? Jamie Searle reports.
Peter Grant’s gut feeling is that in five years Southland will be reduced to one or two thoroughbred race tracks. It would be a big blow to the region, with many Southlanders proud of their race tracks in Riverton, Gore, Winton, Wyndham and Invercargill.
The racing industry has been part of the region’s economic and social fabric for a long time. While the southern industry cannot be compared to major racing events like the Melbourne Cup, Karaka Million or Cup Week in Christchurch, it has been home to gutsy, independent trainers and owners – sometimes generations of them.
Grant, a long-time racing administrator from eastern Southland, is worried that track closures could be the death of the industry in Southland.
Four generations of his family have been involved with racing.
Both he and his father, ‘‘Bunty’’ Grant, are past presidents of the Gore Racing Club, while Peter’s son Cameron is the current president.
He’s worried trainers will step away from racing and owners will lose interest. And he’s right to be concerned.
The Winton Jockey Club has been told its track needs to close by the end of the season on July 31.
It has been recommended the Riverton Racing Club – which holds its Riverton Cup meeting on Saturday – should close its track in 2024.
And race meetings at the Gore Racing Club’s track are proposed to finish in 2024.
Invercargill’s galloping track at Ascot Park will be retained, while Southland harness racing is not affected by the thoroughbred code’s changes.
Affected clubs have made submissions to save their tracks and responses and final decisions are being made in stages.
Western and eastern Southland residents, businesses and organisations have rallied behind their racing clubs to help fight off the threat of track closures. Central Southland people got in behind the Winton Jockey Club.
To see Southland racing face severe cutbacks was tragic considering the many decades of voluntary work done in clubs and the dedication of industry participants, Grant said. ‘‘It guts me to see this happen.’’
‘‘It guts me to see this happen . . . What the younger trainers do I don’t know. For a lot of people in the industry racing is all they know.’’ Gallop South chairman Peter Grant, above
No-one has a crystal ball, but with Grant’s experience in the racing industry he expects the Ascot Park galloping track in Invercargill to remain in five years. He’s not so sure about the Gore and Riverton tracks.
‘‘For [thoroughbred] racing to survive in Southland there’s got to be two tracks, possibly three.’’
Southland was allocated 16 thoroughbred race meetings this season, but in New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing’s discussion paper it recommends just 13 for the province by 2030.
‘‘In five years there will be less horses, less meetings and [Southland] trainers are going to be suffering,’’ Grant, of Croydon Bush, said.
‘‘I can see the older trainers gracefully retiring. What the younger trainers do I don’t know.
‘‘For a lot of people in the industry racing is all they know.’’
A solution might be for the Southland and Otago clubs to join forces to negotiate for better deals in southern racing. ‘‘We’ve got to get into bed with Otago for a united front ... One can’t survive without the other,’’ Grant said.
If ever there was a battler in the racing industry it would be Invercargill trainer Sally McKay. She’s had her share of injuries in 25 years as a trainer but the worst was in 2017 when she was thrown from a young horse and suffered a fractured skull, eye socket, jaw and cheek bone, three bruises on the brain and a crushed right ear canal and drum.
Her biggest battle may be trying to stay in the industry that the loves.
McKay says she’s struggling to make a living as it is. If race days are cut, she could be forced out of full-time work.
‘‘We only race seven or eight months of the year down here, and if we lose more meetings I’d have to get another job. Fuel, [horse] feed and wages have all gone up . . . It makes things tough.’’
Relocating to the main South Island racing and training centre at Riccarton is not an option for her.
She’s not alone in pondering what the future might be. Southland’s leading trainers, father and daughter Kelvin and Aimee Tyler, have 25 horses in work at the Riverton racecourse but they will be weighing up their options if race days are reduced.
If that happens, Kelvin Tyler says he’ll become a hobby trainer. ‘‘I’m not going to get any more horses until I know what the future holds.’’
Although the future of race tracks in Southland is unknown, it is unlikely they will be sold to developers.
The racecourses and amenities in Southland are either on reserves or on land owned by individual clubs.
The Winton racecourse is on reserve land owned by the Department of Conservation. The only way it could be sold was if the Government needed land for housing, Winton Harness Racing Club president Alister Kyle said.
Southland Housing Action Forum chairman Shaun Drylie said the Winton racecourse was not on its radar, but, if the racecourse became available in the future, they would consider it.
Meanwhile, Red Major will go down in history as the last winner on the Winton Jockey Club’s track on October 14. Trainer Gary Gibson and part-owner Doug Gollan, both of Gore, were sombre when asked how it felt to be connected to the track’s last galloping winner.
‘‘I thought at the time it might be the last one,’’ Gollan said.