Members have their say about Riccarton facilities

Press, 7 July 1977, Page 13

Members have their say about Riccarton facilities

By

J. J. BOYLE

People felt about the members’ stand at Riccarton like they did about Siberia. “Everyone knows about it but no-one wants to go there.”

That was one of several)! hard-hitting statements made' in the course of a lengthy |1 discussion on the Canterbury!! Jockey Club’s race-day fac-j ilities at the annual general l meeting of members of the club on Tuesday night. Members, who attended in i close to record numbers — the official count was 85 —( were invited by the chair- ■ man, Mr John Fulton, for, forthright opinions about the facilities on the racecourse, j Although many points "t i criticism from the floor con-j ! cerned the members’ stand,! it was heartening to see support for the committee’s) policy to make improve- ! ments to the public stand a', first priority. ' Demand for best Young people would settle) for nothing less than high-) class facilities on a public|| stand, especially in Christ-) church where galloping I faced heavy competition; from trotting, and a course: at Addington with good amenities, said one speaker. , Mr Fulton told members; that working drawings were through for work on the) public stand, but after con- 1

ulting the club architect hat it would be impossible o put a price on the work omtemplated. Earlier Mr Fulton deplored :he lack of support by memsers on all but two days of he racing year. The club :ould not be expected to) maintain full members’ faclities at peak when mem-| iers were going to stay: iway in their hundreds on 11 of the 13 days’ racing. How to bring the crowds sack to racing exercised ome speakers. Cut down the size of the :ourse and do away with the ‘straight six” sprint track, omeone suggested. Two owners would not lave a bar of that. Another Flemington “We have got the Flemngton of New Zealand, a sig roomy course. Leave it) is it is,” one said. “Riccarton is a course top North Island trainers like) iric Temperton like to race, 1 in,” said another. Another member said he) selieved one could find more itmosphere at a West Coast) meeting than on “off” days it Riccarton. Members and the public

should be brought close together, not spread thinly for about two furlongs along the straight, another member urged. The stewards’ stand came in for a hammering. “A disgrace,” said one. I The poorest facility for club administrators on any 'major New Zealand racecourse, said another. In isolation The days were long past when people would settle for facilities which isolated stewards of racing clubs from the public and female members of their own families, said one of the young committee members of the club. A member wondered why the club ever built a mem- ) bets’ stand in an area where 'the outside enclosure used ito be.

“Horses are becoming incidental to the business of gambling,” said a prominent owner. Riccarton would gain in atmosphere if it provided a saddling enclosure near the site of the doubles totalisator on the lines of the lone at Ellerslie. Jockeys I could mount horses in that

enclosure and the public could get a good look at the horses before they were taken on to the track. 1 New Zealanders and Australians liked to see the horses, said another member. It was different on courses in the United States, like Aqueduct, which had been described as a crap game with a fence around it, and where horses were hardly on view at all beforehand. Earlier when a member voiced some objections to the standard of dress in the members’ grandstand, he was told that the club planned to erect notices insisting that jackets and ties be worn.

Happily, one of the young officials of the club, with assistance from another member, broadened some narrow horizons by asking if one could be regarded as suitably dressed irr a jacket and a tie while at the same time he had the backside out of his pants. “Point taken. We’ve got the message,” Mr Fulton replied to this objection, and promised that the wording of the proposed cautionary notices would be amended.