Long service to Kumara club

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34048, 12 January 1976, Page 8

Long service to Kumara club

Persistent rain and falling temperatures in the late afternoon made demands on the stoicism of everyone who attended the Kumara Racing Club’s meeting on Saturday, above all on the club's 83-year-old president, Mr Bill Stewart.

Mr Stewart was unwell, and had been a hospital patient up to the eve of the meeting, but he has been club’s president for 33 years, and health considerations did not stop him from adding another chapter to a remarkable history of dedication to one of New Zealand’s most colourful racing dubs.

Kumara’s fight to remain on its own course in defiance of the wishes of the New Zealand Racing Authority has been widely publicicsed, and has served as something of a rallying cry for Coasters. One who travelled far to be present on Saturday was Mr V. P. (Mo.) Bernard, a former West Coaster who spends much of his time in Australia, and every second

x eat -goes to ■ England to visit his old friend Scobie Breasley and to watch the English Derby. Like many others Mr Bernard feels there is a place for the small, friendly if somehwat spartan community race meeting just as much as the plush background of a Randwick or a Sandown, and his presence at Kumara on Saturday reflected that attitude.