TROTTING MERGER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 65, 18 March 1930, Page 13

TROTTING MERGER.

A GOOD MOVE. The proposal which has for its object the merging of the Auckland and Otahuhu Trotting Clubs should received unanmous support, because there can be no good purpose served by the Otahuhu Club making a clean break and going to race on its own property at Mangere. Nobody wants to see an old and popular club like Otahuhu disappear, but while there is such a fine course, stands and lawns as the Auckland Trotting Club possesses at Alexandra Park, there is no necessity for city meetings to be held elsewhere. The Otahuhu Club has figured prominently in the trotting sport and has done a tremendous amount of good catering over a long period of for owners by putting on the most suitable class of races. When the club bought a property at Mangere and announced the intention to race there in the near future close observers offered the opinion thai it -would be a retrograde step. Apparently members of the committee gave the matter a second thought, and now we learn that there is every prospect of a merger between the Auckland and Otahuhu Clubs. There is every reason to expect the amalgamation to take place, and Auckland take over the permits for the four days held by Otahuhu. The sport would not suffer any by the merger; on the other »and, it should benefit, and in centralising trotting it will mean that many acres of the best land at Mangere will not be locked up because a club has a permit to race four days in a year.