Horse Race Threat To Amateur Status

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31330, 29 March 1967, Page 1

Horse Race Threat To Amateur Status

A New Zealand champion athlete, D. W. Mackenzie, might have affected his amateur status by competing against the pacer Lordship, driven by a professional horseman, at a charity equalisator meeting at Addington Raceway on the afternoon of Anzac Day. Mackenzie had agreed to race against Lordship, winner of more than £50,000 in stakes, and a New Zealand champion cyclist, T. Tabak, over 110 yards in an event which was expected to have been a highlight of the afternoon’s entertainment. The organisers of the meeting, the Christchurch Lions Club, the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association and the Canterbury Trotting Owners’ and Breeders’ Association, have been advised by the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association that Mackenzie ran a risk of endangering his amateur status if he competed against Lordship,

driven by a professional horseman. The association has told the organisers that Mackenzie could race against Lordship if the horse was driven by an amateur horseman. Mrs D. D. Nyhan, the owner of Lordship, and the horse’s trainer, D. G. Nyhan, accepted the invitation for their horse to contest the event, but insisted that their son, D. D. Nyhan, the stallion’s usual race driver, should be his reinsman. A spokesman for the Canterbury Amateur Cycling Centre said yesterday that there was no danger of Tabak affecting his amateur status by competing in the race as the equalisator meeting was

being run for charitable purposes. The organisers have arranged for Lordship to be replaced by either Disband or Lochgair, well-performed pacers trained by J. Grant and D. G. Jones. An amateur driver will handle whichever horse is started. Six parachutists from the Canterbury Skydiving Club will jump into South Hagley Park early on the afternoon of Anzac Day as a prelude to the equalisator race meeting. The sky divers will have smoke canisters strapped on and hope to leave a two-mile long column of smoke. It is the first time that permission has been given to use South Hagley Park as a landing ground for parachutists.