OTAGO HUNT CLUB

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29220, 2 June 1960, Page 4

OTAGO HUNT CLUB

New Date Sought For Meeting

•‘The Press" Special Service DUNEDIN. June 1.

The Otago Hunt Club intends to depart from its usual practice of holding Its annual race meeting near the end of August or early in September, and has applied for a new date in March.

Lack of support resulting in a decrease in totalizator returns has forced the committee to look round for some way of bringing the meeting back to its former popularity. Owners and trainers have approved of a suggestion that a date before the Riverton Easter meeting be tried and March 11, a free day on the racing calendar, has been applied for.

Previously the club's meeting followed the Grand National fixture when most of the jumpers had had enough racing. With the new date it is felt by the committee that the jumping events on the programme will prove a good lead up to the Riverton fixture in introducing the steeplechasing season in the south. From the list of dates submitted to the Racing Conference for consideration there is little doubt that March 11 will be approved at the annual meeting of the conference next month. This will mean that there will be a lapse of 19 months between Otago Hunt race meetings, but the fixture next vear will still

fall in the same season that the club would have normally raced.