Trip to Hobart for lucky patrons

Press, 31 December 1980, Page 5

Trip to Hobart for lucky patrons

Patrons at the Canterbury Park Trotting Club’s New Year meeting at Addington Raceway on Jan-

uary 1 and 5 will all be eligible to participate in '■ e Radio Avon-Ansett Inter - Dominion “giveaway.” The prize will be a return air trip for two to Hobart with accommodation for one week provided by Ansett Airlines of Australia. The Canterbury Park club will provide two stand tickets for the Grand Final of t’.e Inter-Dominion Championships to be run in Hobart on March 21, while there will be $2OO in spending money for the winner from Radio Avon. Entry forms for the contest will be in the race books tomorrow and on Monday. The prize will be drawn by a Radio Avon disc jockey. Wayne Douglas, after the ninth race on the second night of the meeting. There will also be a $4OO mystery punter giveaway on January 5. Arrangements have been made for a bet of $lO each way to be made on the favourite in a selected race, with $5 each way on the second and third favourites and $2 each way on all of the other runners. Envelopes containing vouchers will be distributed by members of the staff of Radio Avon. It is intended that the competition will be run on four of the 10 races on the night. There will be other entertainment on Monday

night. Provided weather conditions are suitable, six skydivers will be dropped from 8000 feet. They will free-fall and land in the confines of ■ Addington Raceway. Radio Avon is involved with the various forms of motor racing at Woodford Glen Speedway and have arranged for three of the best-presented vehicles to be driven along the front straight and parked in front of the public grandstand for several minutes. The former star juvenile pacer, Noodlum, will also be paraded by Freeman Holmes. He will be in harness and will be allowed to stretch out a little in front of the crowd.' While the various giveaways and other attractions will no doubt prove popular with the holiday crowds which usually attend New Year meetings at Addington, it will be the horses which take the centre of the stage. The Canterbury Park Club has arranged two attractive programmes, headed by the $17,500 Ninth New Zealand Standardbred Breeders’ Stakes, a race for mares and fillies restricted to nine starters. The winning stake of $11,375 will be boosted by another $lOOO should the winner break the New Zealand mile record for, a mare. In addition the owner of the winner will receive a free service to Tudor Hanover, the sire of the “darling of the north,” Delightful Lady, donated

by Mr and Mrs R. A. Owens. Another stellar attraction tomorrow will be the Stewards’ Free-for-all, a mile face for trotters, in which Hano Direct will be a leading contender. The most tightly-as-sessed race for pacers that night will be the President’s Stakes, which will cater for C 7, C 8 and C 9 horses. Carrying a stake of $5500, it will be run over 2600 m from a mobile start. The $lO,OOO Canterbury Park Cup, for trotters, and the $BOOO New Year Free-for-all, a mile race for the top pacers, will be the feature events on January Much interest, too will be taken in the E.F. Mercer Mile, a mobile start race for three-year-olds restricted to 10 starters. The New Zealand Derby winner, Amaze, El Regale, which has shown such fine form in the Auckland area recently, Vita Man, Fouroux, Melton Monarch, Lock Rae, Lomondu Host, Toshack and Idle Along are among the entrants for this event. There will be only two standing , start races on each nigh’t of the meeting. Entries for the support* ing races on both nights of the meeting are well up to standard, with most of the more highly-regarded slow and intermediate class horses in Canterbury among the nominations. This should ensure that the racing is up to the usual high standard seen at this meeting.