GRNZ welcomes industry review

THE new head of Greyhounhd Racing New Zealand is welcoming John Messara’s review of the country’s racing industry.

The review comes within Mauro Barsi’s first eight weeks at his new job heading the canine code. The chief executive has already sat down with Messara to discuss his widescale review.

‘‘We met here in our Petone offices and we had a chat,’’ Barsi said.

‘‘An opening bid, I would describe it as, and he wanted to know a bit about the industry — how it worked and how we saw the future.’’

Messara quizzed Barsi on what improvements the greyhound industry needed to succeed.

‘‘He was interested in hearing about what we are doing and where we are about to go.

‘‘He made it clear that we could put formal submissions to him and we are drafting those now.’’

Greyhound Racing New Zealand is seeking the finalisation of legislation taxing overseas bookmakers for using New Zealand races as a betting product.

‘‘We would like to see that go through as quickly as possible. That’s a million dollars a month to the [racing] industry,’’ Barsi said.

Barsi is keen to have greyhound racing part of any discussion about the rationalisa tion of racing industry venues.

Greyhound racing is already ahead of the horse racing codes, having rationalised by having just seven tracks nationwide.

The thoroughbred code is awaiting plans to be announced for a stateoftheart thoroughbred track, which was approved by racing minister Winston Peters.

Should any new venue be built it would make sense to incorporate all three racing codes, Barsi said.

‘‘I think if you are going to do something new and flash in the Waikato, doing that with three codes together makes a lot more sense than doing three separate versions.

‘‘I would be pushing for us to be part of our discussion.’’

Harness racing and greyhounds previously held many dualcode meetings, but those have dramatically dropped in recent years. Reintroducing them and working closely with both horse racing codes is essential to the success of the racing industry, Barsi said.

‘‘I think you would be hard pressed to suggest otherwise.

‘‘Our future as a code is going to be integrally linked to the overall racing industry’s footprint.’’

Greyhound racing has one more item on its wishlist for legislative reform: the classification of dogs by regional authorities.