TROTTING Addington Meeting At Night On August 22

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30468, 16 June 1964, Page 5

TROTTING Addington Meeting At Night On August 22

The New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club intends racing at night on Saturday, August 22. This is the second day of the club’s national meeting, the first day being held a week earlier. August 22 is the day of the Australia-New Zealand Rugby test at Lancaster Park.

The other clubs racing at Addington Raceway—Canterbury Park and New Brighton will also run day and night meetings in the new season.

The New Brighton club will be one of those affected by the 1965 Inter-Dominion Championship series, which will be run at Forbury Park on February 20, 24 and 27 and March 3.

Dates for the new season will be considered by the dates committee of the New Zealand Trotting Conference at a meeting in Dunedin on July 7. The following day these will be approved at the

annual meeting of the conference, also in Dunedin. The Metropolitan club has applied to run two day and two night meetings at its cup meeting in November. New Zealand Cup day will be on Tuesday, November 10, with Show Day on Friday, November 13. The club has sought Saturday, November 21, and Saturday, November 28, for its night meetings that month. For a time it seeemed likely that the club would have raced mid-week on the week following the running of the New Zealand Cup, but this must have been decided against. The shorter the time taken to run the two days and two nights of the cup meeting, the greater support the club can expect from outside owners and trainers.

The club again intends running two night and one day meeting at Easter as was the case this year, when the day meeting on Easter Saturday proved a tremendous success. Here again the club’s decision has been widely condemned by other clubs. It is felt that the club should race on a Saturday and Wed-

nesday night, with the final day meeting on the following Saturday. Other clubs feel that the Metropolitan club is holding too many good Saturdays to the disadvantage of smaller meetings which are forced to race on less favourable days. New Brighton The New Brighton club will next season have its first full season at Addington Raceway. This season it held night meetings in December and February. Next season the club will hold a day meeting on September 5, and a fortnight later it will hold a night meeting. It will race at night on December 5 and on Wednesday, March 10. The club would normally have raced on February 20, the day on which the Inter-

Dominion meeting will open at Forbury Park. The Canterbury Park club has decided to race in the day on January 1, and hold a night meeting on January 2. The club would have had to have at least one day between each meeting if both were run at night. The club will race at night on February 13 and finish its season with a day meeting on May 22. It is expected that a number of other changes will have to be made to fit in with the Inter-Dominion meeting. The Invercargill club has applied for February 20 and 27 and the Geraldine club for February 27. It is unlikely that either club will want to race against the Forbury Park series, but neither will find it easy to secure suitable dates. Both clubs will be able

to avoid clashing with other trotting meetings, but they also have to contend with galloping meetings. The dates committee will have tremendous problems to settle. The Otaki club and the Manawatu club have both sought permission to race on November 7, while the Wellington club will meet strong opposition from South Island clubs, as well as those in the North Island, in some of the dates it has sought.