Jockey club fighting to keep meeting dates

The South Canterbury Jockey Club is not giving up the fight to save Phar Lap Raceway after some more bad news.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) yesterday released its racing dates for the 2021-22 season, scheduling only three gallops meetings to the Timaru raceway when normally there would be six.

‘‘We’re not giving up,’’ South Canterbury Racing Club president Noel Walker said.

‘‘We’ve applied to have an extra three meetings.

‘‘We need those weeks to stay solvent and viable otherwise we’re running on empty.

‘‘It costs a lot of money to run Phar Lap Raceway.’’

The club, which has been allocated meetings on October 8, December 28 and April 28 next year, has been battling to keep afloat ever since the Messara report commissioned by the Government was released in 2018.

The report listed the raceway for possible closure from 2024/25, stating it would not be needed once a synthetic track was built at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s Riccarton Park in Christchurch.

CJC chief executive Tim Mills said work was now well underway on the $13.5m synthetic track being built inside the turf course.

‘‘We hope to complete the track by August.’’

The Government has contributed $10.5m towards the project with the remainder raised by the club.

Once completed, the Canterbury club believed it could hold more race meetings, around 10 at least, than it currently held and start trial

Noel Walker

meetings, possibly as many as 12.

Walker described the Riccarton track project as ‘‘pie in the sky’’.

‘‘A lot of trainers won’t run their horses on those sorts of tracks.’’

In February 2019, Walker presented a Save Phar Lap Raceway petition to Parliament.

In a submission to the parliamentary primary business select committee on May 24, 2019, regarding that petition, NZ Racing Board chief executive John Allen said NZTR had not made a decision on Timaru and other venues for racing from the 2024/25 season.

‘‘NZTR is still working through its processes,’’ he said, ‘‘and is expected to release its final decision later this year (2019).’’

That decision has still not been reached.

Walker said the petition had been ‘‘just a waste if time’’ and an appeal to the then Minister of Racing Winston Peters was also unsuccessful.

Walker did not rule out the possibility of making another plea to the Government. He was disappointed with NZTR and Racing NZ.

‘‘They’ve lost millions of dollars and most have still got their jobs.

‘‘The only thing to get racing back is to increase the stakes. If they increased the stakes it would get going again, but they haven’t,’’ Walker said.

NZTR disagreed with Walker’s loss of money claim, saying that the most recent annual report showed a $1.1 million surplus.

In 2020 when Covid-19 shut down racing, Phar Lap Raceway lost five gallops and four harness meetings.

Meanwhile, the club will be running its autumn gallops at Phar Lap Raceway tomorrow.

Walker said the fields were all strong.

‘‘There will be nine races, and hopefully we’ll get a good crowd.

‘‘We should get around $30,000 in on-course betting and over $1 million off-course.’’

Large fields have entered some races, and racing starts at midday.

‘‘We need those weeks to stay solvent and viable otherwise we’re running on empty.’’