Companies allowed to race

Press, 14 July 1980, Page 24

Companies allowed to race

PA Invercargill Trotting Conference delegates have voted in favour of allowing approved companies to race standardbred horses as well as breeding them in future. This has not been the case in the past. The change had been sought by the executive at the conference’s annual meeting in Queenstown. Delegates also decided to allow any conference staff member, apart from the chief executive officer, the secretary, the stipendiary stewards,- the handicapper, and the keeper of the stud book, to race standardbreds

in the new season. Previously other members of the conference. staff were allowed to breed horses, but not to race them. In future the conference executive will have to submit to the annual meeting an expenditure budget and details of a proposed levy on clubs for the coming year. The remit to this effect was sponsored by the Wellington Trotting Club.

A remit sponsored by the executive asking for an increase in the fee for registering colours from $3 to $5 was carried overwhelmingly as was one compelling trainers to notify the conference

within 48 hours of horses I who leave or join their | stables. The executive said that such action would greatly assist up-to-date computer information. The executive also succeeded with a remit that it no longer be necessary for a trainer to have to drive a horse which his wife owns or part-owns with persons other than her husband. It will also no longer be necessary for a driver who is the driver of his own horse to pay a driving fee for himself. The Northland Trotting Club succeeded with a remit asking that fees payable to

professional horsemen be fixed by the executive annually before the beginning of each racing season. The change was backed by the new Trotting Trainers and Horsemen’s Association. No horse will in future be judged a placegetter in a race unless the horseman is occupying the sulky at the time the horse reaches the winning post. Previously, there was no clear provision in the rules to show what the position would be if a driverless horse completed a race in a dividend-bearing or stake-bearing placing. The 1981 annual meeting will be held in Wanganui.