Decisions yet to be made on trotting venue, Forbury land

RACING

CENTRAL and local government are in discussions about the land where the Forbury Park Trotting Club sits and announcements about its fate will be made in the next few weeks.

A racing review report was released this week which concluded Forbury Park would not hold any meetings at its venue in St Kilda after the end of this season.

Forbury Park Trotting Club chairman Craig Paddon said the club had two options: either find a greenfields site or move to Wingatui, home of the Otago

Racing Club.

It had earmarked a site in the Mosgiel area it could move to and it had an agreement with the owner but it was early days and there were plenty of hurdles to get over.

The land where the race track sits in Victoria Rd has a rateable value of $7.92 million, Dunedin City Council records show.

Paddon confirmed the club was working with other parties, including central and local government, and many things were in play at the moment.

He was not in a position to make any comment about what the discussions were centred on.

The Dunedin City Council had approached the club a couple of years ago to look at using the inside of the track for water storage.

The options being presented to the club now were not available a year ago, Paddon said.

Under current racing legislation, the money received from any venue which is deemed as a surplus requirement and sold, is spent in the region. But the governing body, which in this case is Harness Racing New Zealand, has the final say on where the money is spent.

It is not bound by legislation to give the money to the Forbury Park Trotting Club.

Otago RC has indicated

it would roll out the welcome mat for the trotting club, should it head to Wingatui, but there appears little chance of the dogs heading over the hill.

And should Forbury Park be sold, the money from the sale will not necessarily go straight into the back pocket of the trotting club.

Otago Racing Club president Murray Acklin said the two clubs had met and had fruitful discussions.

The racing club was sympathetic to the plight of the trotting club, he said.

‘We would welcome them to come and race at Wingatui.

‘‘It would be a mutual benefit for both codes and we have no issue with that,’’ Acklin said.

‘‘Initially it would be on grass but nothing is off the table . . . we can’t make any commitments and we have no firm plans at this stage but we are happy to continue dialogue.’’

Acklin said an allweather track to be used for trotting would cost considerably less than the bigger allweather tracks being built around the country for thoroughbreds. Those tracks were costing about $14 million and a track for standardbreds would be considerably cheaper, he said.

The review found changes which had closed tracks over the past few years had now been set in stone. Waikouaiti Racing Club will no longer be racing at Waikouaiti, having already moved to Wingatui earlier this year, while Central Otago Racing Club will have its sole date at Cromwell.

Wyndham and Winton Racing Clubs will race at Gore in the future.

Thoroughbred tracks which will remain open in the South are Riverton, Invercargill, Gore, Wingatui, Oamaru, Kurow and Cromwell.

Otago Greyhound Racing Club general manager John Carlyle said the greyhound club was disappointed with the decision.

It was yet to decide what to do but the club’s committee would meet in the coming days.

The club moved to Forbury Park in 1980 from Tahuna Park and it owned two buildings at Forbury Park.

It also owned the structure of the track and paid a rent to the trotting club for the land the track sits on.

Carlyle said there were options but moving to Wingatui was not one of them, as it was too frostprone and the sand track used by dogs could not handle the frost.