WAITATI MANUKA FOR RICCARTON STEEPLES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28922, 16 June 1959, Page 4

WAITATI MANUKA FOR RICCARTON STEEPLES

•The Press’ Special Service

DUNEDIN, June 15.

Ten tops of Otago manuka will be used in the fences for this year’s Grand National Steeplechase at Riccarton on August 1. A full-scale operation is underway at Waitati to provide the brush that has given the Canterbury Jockey Club the reputation of having some of the best cross country fences in the Dominion.

The club has been forced to come this far south because the manuka blight has practically cleaned out suitable scrub in the Canterbury district. For the last few years the manuka has been obtained from Kaikoura and before that from Waiati. Mr F. Evans, caretaker of the Riccarton racecourse, and his foreman, Mr A. Ferguson, are in charge of , operations and they have with them seven other members of the course staff.

The job was well under way this morning and many bundles of scrub were tied ready for transport to the Waitati railway station, where two large railway trucks will transport the manuka to Christchurch. The party travelled to Dunedin in two cars and a van. A locally-owned truck will assist with the carriage of the scrub to Waitati.

It will take at least three days to collect the required amount of scrub. In previous years 16 tons of manuka have been used for the fences, but because of the

distance it has to’ be carted this time? it has been reduced to 10 tons.

This does not: mean that the Riccarton country will be any less’ formidable. At least five tons of manuka will be used for Cutts’s Brush. Mr Evans said that the Waitati manuka was the best scrub his team had cut in recent years. The blight was destroying the manuka even this far south and the Canterbury Jockey Club was preparing for the time when it would not be available. A far-sighted policy was already in operation and before many years the Riccarton course would be able to boast live hedges.

Some of these were already well on the way, said Mr Evans, and it was hoped that the first live fences would be used for the 1960 Grand National Steeplechase. In the meantime these hedges would be topped off with broom. Because of this six tons of manuka have been dispensed with this year. Chinese honeysuckle and Japanese privet are the two hedges being grown at Riccarton. They are quick growing and are not brittle.

By their rate of growth it is expected that when they have been trimmed down after a national meeting they will be back to the correct height for the next season.