TROTTING Oversize Nominations For Rangiora Meeting

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 5

TROTTING Oversize Nominations For Rangiora Meeting

The problems facing clubs catering for horses in the slower classes are emphasised by the nominations received by the Rangiora Trotting Club for its summer meeting on Saturday week.

Some 286 horses have been entered for the nine-race programme; only the Kaiapoi Handicap, for 2:18 class trotters, has drawn a field of less than the course safety limit of 20.

A maximum of 159 horses can start at the meeting, so if all survive withdrawals next Monday, the committee will be faced with eliminating 127 horses. There are certain to be some withdrawals, but at such meetings these are usually most limited. The club can start 32 maiden pacers: two races are being nm for these horses. However, entries total 65. Again, fewer than half of the entries in the Seventh Rangiora Raceway Stakes, for two-year-olds, can secure a start. The club has received 32 entries for this event, with the safety limit only 15. The response for the Rangiora Cup, a two-mile event with a limit of 2min 13sec, was much greater than anticipated at 24, four more than the over-all limit. This is the club’s first attempt at running a race with such a tight limit and the response must be rewarding to the committee. The Oxford Handicap, for 2min 19sec class pacers, has drawn 45 entries, of which only 16 may start. From 12 to 16 horses will probably have to be eliminated from other races.

Nominations for the Ashburton meeting on December 26 may not be as heavy as they have been at times, but balloting will be necessary in most slow-class races for both pacers and trotters. This club has received 64 entries for its maiden event, and 38 entries in a race with a limit of 2min 17sec.

Balloting was necessary for the Waimate meeting to be held Saturday, and no doubt fields at most other meetings to be held during the remainder of the season will require reductions to bring them back to course safety limits. Worse Later The size of nominations at meetings in Canterbury increases in the autumn and early winter when Southland and Otago meetings end and a few horses from the North Island add to the problems facing clubs.

The New Zealand Trotting Conference and the clubs might have to take a lead from the Western Australian Trotting Association, which runs trials at Gloucester Park each Tuesday night, when as many as 14 events are decided.

These trials are conducted under strict supervision by the stipendiary stewards and two experienced reinsmen, who are in charge of the reinsmen's school. The trials serve at least two purposes. Firstly they are the training ground for young reinsmen who are guided and lectured on their faults; secondly horses that offend at registered meetings may be sent back to trials until their behaviour improves. As some 130 horses each week are balloted out from registered meetings, trainers and drivers do all in their power to have their horses at their best.

Performances of the young drivers at these trials are watched closely and they have to drive in many events before being granted a licence to drive at country meetings. Trials are run in Canterbury about once every fortnight or three weeks for most

of the season, such events being run by the Canterbury, Mid-Canterbury, and South Canterbury-North Otago Owners and Breeders’ Association. All trials are supervised by stipendiary stewards, but more often than not the occasional trials are at places like Kaikoura and on the West Coast and supervised by deputies. The owners and breeders’ organisations have carried out a tremendous task over the years and so relieved the conference and the clubs of much of the organisation of such meetings. The time has now been reached where, perhaps, greater assistance may be required if these organisations are going to continue running trials. Almost all of the duties at trials are carried out by members of the committee on a voluntary basis and many hundreds of hours are given free of charge each season. A more extensive system of trials run each week near Christchurch, Ashburton and Washdyke could help clubs to reduce fields to the safety limits: and it would also give the conference much stricter control over the issue of driving licences.