TROTTING Rise In Stakes Likely After Good Cup Meeting

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30916, 24 November 1965, Page 5

TROTTING Rise In Stakes Likely After Good Cup Meeting

Increases in stakes for the Easter meeting should follow the success of the New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club’s cup meeting, which ended at Addington Raceway last Saturday.

Stakes at the Easter meeting have in the main fallen below those paid at the cup meeting, but they have improved in recent years.

The Easter Cup last year carried a stake of £3OOO and a trophy valued at £IOO, while the New Zealand Hambletonian Handicap, for trotters, carried a stake of £ISOO.

Stakes for some of the other races were still well below their peak of 14 years earlier, but this could be remedied this season. Given reasonable weather at the Easter meeting, the club could enjoy a highly successful season and stakes for next term should show further increases.

Perhaps the New Zealand Cup stake will reach £IO,OOO for a first time. Apart from the first night meeting, the weather throughout the cup meeting was far from what can normally be expected in Christchurch in November. In the circumstances, the total attendance figures of some 52,000 were most satisfactory and within about 4000 of the previous year. The club did well to hold on-course investments at £623,766, a drop of less than £3OOO on the previous year. Had there not been such an unusually high proportion of double-figure dividends, last year’s figures could have been exceeded.

Worth The Change The results of the meeting more than justified the club’s change to part-day and partnight racing in 1963. The on-course turn-over at the club’s last comnlete day cup meeting in 1962 was only £513 330 10s. Off-course investments have shown an even greater increase. In 1962, at the last day cup meeting, off-course investments amounted to £483,357 ss, increasing to £562,599 the following year when two night meetings were included. Then, in 1964,

the total was £587,396, and this year it reached a record £655,879 ss. The results of the meetings emphasise the popularity of trotting in Canterbury, but they by no means suggest that improvements cannot be made.

The club did not run two doubles on the first day of the meeting, but these proved popular at the other three meetings. Little difficulty should have been found in organising a double for course patrons only on cup day.

Slow Classes

When clubs first started to run nine-race programmes the New Zealand Trotting Conference insisted that the extra races catered for maiden and slow-class horses. The conference policy is more elastic now and it was surprising to see the club retain such poor-class events on the programmes. The deletion of those races could assist the club’s programme committee, which has been widely criticised for its methods of selecting fields. Perhaps much of the criticism has been soundly based, but few would envy the committee its task when in some cases more than 40 horses remained in fields after withdrawals. In some classes, such as 2:16, the club could well have run two races each day, while there were sufficient horses in other classes to provide two full fields. The deletion of slow-class events could enable the club to overcome the vexed question of eliminations at future meetings. The value of the club’s under-cover betting facilities was emphasised when the weather was bitterly cold on Saturday night. A further innovation which would be of assistance to patrons on such nights would be an in-field indicator. These indicators are used

extensively at galloping and trotting meetings in the North Island where they are considered most essential. No in-fleld indicators are in use in the South Island and this is another field in which the Metropolitan club could give a lead. The return to two enclosures is something which should be considered by the club. Not so many years ago when there were two enclosures thousands of persons moved between Addington and the showgrounds on Show Day. Since the universal admission charge of 5s was adopted these numbers have dwindled sharply. A second enclosure has been reinstated at Alexandra Park Raceway this season and, according to reports, it has met with a worth-while response. Film Patrols

The club has for some time been investigating some means of filming races, but so far little has been achieved. Practically every country running racing and trotting meetings considers some form of film patrol essential as a mean- of protecting owners, trainers, drivers and the public. The filming of races is becoming commonplace in the North Island and its introduction to Addington is long overdue.

The question of the use of the starting gate was widely debated throughout the cup meeting.

Annual Meeting.—The annual meeting of the New Zealand Trotting Conference will be held in Auckland on Tuesday, July 12, 1966. The dates committee will meet on Monday. July 11.

The majority of drivers in Canterbury are opposed to the gate and a move to have it banned was narrowly de-

feated at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Owners' and Breeders’ Association during cup week. In some quarters it has been suggested that it might not be long before all races are started by the gate. There is no doubt there is room in trotting for the starting gate, but whether it should be used for all races seems doubtful. Much of the interest would be taken from races in which it is usual for horses to start from various marks. The Dominion Handicap, for instance, would have been a rather tame race had the whole field started from the limit. On the other hand, the New Zealand Trotting Free-for-All provided a splendid contest. Broke At Start Much force was added to arguments in favour of the starting game when a number of heavily-backed runners broke at the start of their races and lost all chance. A mixture of standing and moving starts could provide the answer, just as part-day and part-night meetings have proved a great success at Addington. But whether the club should continue to start 14 horses from behind the gate remains to be seen. The standard of racing when there have been fewer than 14 runners has been much higher than when maximum fields have paraded. Winners In Melbourne New Zealand-bred horses won both heats of the Sires’ Produce Stakes at Melbourne on Saturday night. The first heat was won by Lin Eden (Morris Eden —Linraine), while John Craig (Brahman —First Belle) won the second heat.

Belroy (Stormyway—Rosebeam), starting at 7 to 4, won the Elliott Handicap.