Greyhounds get priority

Press, 21 June 1980, Page 21

Greyhounds get priority

PA Wellington The president of the New Zealand Racing Conference, Mr Arthur Hughes, said yesterday that he is amazed at a decision of the New Zealand Racing Authority against an application by the Avon,dale Jockey Club to hold a race meeting on Labour Day, October 27, 1980, in opposition to the Auckland Greyhound Racing Club’s meeting to be held at Mount Smart Stadium on that day. “I find it incredible,” said Mr Hughes, “that in a city with the population of Auckland the authority has determined that a Racing Club and a Greyhound Club cannot both hold meetings on a public holiday.” . . The Avondale Jockey Club

had been granted an additional totalisator permit and they intended to hold a meeting on Labour Day this year. This meeting would be a low-key one in the sense that it is a restricted meeting confined to maiden and class 4 horses, he said. Horse racing attracted different patrons from those interested in greyhound racing, and he considered that the race-going public of Auckland were, through the Authority’s action, being denied their right to attend a race meeting on Labour Day. Mr Hughes said he was sure that the Authority’s decision would be of the utmost concern to all racing administrators if the yardstick was to be that a horse racing meeting could not be held on the same day in the larger cities. The fact that the Authority had previously endorsed a race meeting at Avondale and a trotting at Alexandra Park on the same day and night made the recent finding even more difficult to fathom. “I can only conclude,” said Mr Hughes, “that if the Authority’s decision is a considered judgment, one must doubt, its ability effectively to administer the over-all interests of galloping. trotting, and greyhound racina.”