Avondale gets help for night facilities

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 43

Avondale gets help for night facilities

The New Zealand Racing Authority has agreed to help the Avondale Jockey Club establish facilities for night racing. The club’s secretarymanager, John Wild, said the authority had approved the project and undertaken to help with the cost,' estimated at $3,150,000. Mr Wild said the first night meeting at Avondale could be held by April, 1987.

Night meetings are popular attractions in Hong Kong, the United

States and South America. A Melbourne firm .of consulting electrical engineers, Messrs Lobley, Triedel, Davies and partners, will next month complete the. design for floodlighting the Avondale track. Tenders will close in about three months. It is expected construction, electrical reticulation and other work will take about nine months from the letting of the successful tender.

Last year the Avondale club commissioned a

feasibility study from the Melbourne firm which has designed lighting for the Happy Valley and Sha Tin (Hong Kong) tracks, and large sports grounds in Australia. The club, meanwhile, has received the necessary approval from the New Zealand Racing Conference and the Auckland City Council. Mr Wild said it was envisaged that night meetings would be contained within the late spring, summer and autumn.