TROTTING Move To Spotswood Hopes Fade

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31341, 11 April 1967, Page 5

TROTTING Move To Spotswood Hopes Fade

Supporters of the Cheviot Trotting Club’s scheme to return to racing on its home course at Spotswood received a setback on Saturday when the club held its annual race meeting at Rangiora Raceway.

On-course betting on Saturday topped the £50,000 mark for only the second time in the history of the club. The only other time was in 1951 when the turnover amounted to £51,354. On Saturday the total was £50,164 10s, a surprisingly large amount considering the unfavourable weather about Christchurch until about 9 a.m.

Off-course betting reached a new record for the club, amounting to £46,840, an increase of £13,839 10s over the previous year and £BOOO more than the £38,840 handled in 1965 when the club had its previous best turn-over. The club’s change in its programme played its part in

securing increases in both on and off-course turn-over. The club tightened the limit for the Cheviot Cup and secured a much stronger field than in the past. The other races, too, attracted interesting open fields and betting from offcourse sources showed an increase on the majority of races.

Stakes on Saturday were a new record for the club at £3550, compared with £3075 a year earlier. For ’ more than 10 years now the Cheviot club has been seeking permission from the New Zealand Trotting Conference to return to racing on its own course. The club has laid out a most attractive course at Spotswood, about five miles north of Cheviot. In recent months the club has made further representations to the conference regarding a shift back to Spotswood. Again the conference has declined to approve such

a change, although it has been suggested that there has been a growing support for the Cheviot club among members of the executive of the conference. Against Change The results of Saturday’s meeting gave opponents of the proposed change back to Spotswood further ammunition to support their arguments. Mainly these centre about the possible good to trotting as a whole if the club raced on its own course. They claim that the club could not expect to have an On-course turn-over approaching £30,000, let alone the £50,000 handled at Rangiora on Saturday, if they raced on their own course.

If the club raced on its own course and had a turn-over of about £30,000, stakes would probably have to be reduced and classes loosened. As a result off-course betting could

be expected to decline to less than £40,000 a day. The Cheviot club naturally feels chastened about the decision of the conference not to allow it to race on its own course. Officials of the club feel that the conference should not force them to centralise at Rangiora unless further centralisation is enforced elsewhere. For a time the conference expressed the view that a certain amount of centralisation was desirable. The only centralisation on—and that was on a voluntary basis—was that of the Wairio club to the Winton course.

The Cheviot case is the only one in which the conference has shown any determination to have its wishes carried out. Even the most ardent supporters of the Cheviot club admit that it cannot expect to race with the same success on its own course as it has at Rangiora; but they feel that the club should be allowed to race on its home course for two years to see whether centralisation can be justified. Good arguments can be produced for and against centralisation as far as the Cheviot

club is concerned. The club has not given up the fight to race back at its own course and its endeavours to achieve this goal are likely to continue for some time yet.