Harness Horse Association fails to gain voting right

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 43

Harness Horse Association fails to gain voting right

NZPA staff correspondent ALAN GROVES Wellington

The New Zealand Harness Horse Association, a body formed to speak for breeders, owners, trainers and drivers, has failed again to gain voting rights on the N.Z. Trotting Conference.

A motion put by the Marlborough delegate, Mr Tom Hickman, at the annual general meeting of the conference held yesterday in Wellington was lost because of doubts that the association had eliminated infighting between the four bodies it is trying to amalgamate, and that it had the membership to justify voting rights.

The N.Z. Harness Horse Association was formed before last year’s annual general meeting and promoted as worthy not only of a vote, along with the 58 affiliated clubs, but of a place on the executive.

It was denied voting rights and called on to consolidate and bring into the fold rebellious offshoots of the N.Z. Owners, Trainers and Breeders Association. In the 12 months since then it has lost the support of the Canterbury branch of the NZOTBA, which joined its Southland counterpart in independence, and the in-house bickering has continued. Mr Hickman yesterday bolstered his claim that "the time was long overdue” for the association to have voting rights by stating it had 2400 members who “put over $400,000 annually into conference coffers.” The chairman and conference president, . Mr Dewar Robertshaw, said the executive, “reluctantly and with regret,” had concluded that it is too early to grant such a right. "It (the executive) has tried to encourage and support the concept but it

is now having doubts about the practicality of amalgamating separate groups with conflicting interests,” Mr Robertshaw said.

The NZOTBA and its breakaway Southland branch had asked during the year for independent relations with the Hamess Horse Association, which had been refused “as this would defeat the whole object of the excercise.”

The executive has also learned of the Canterbury withdrawal and that the NZOTBA was to reconsider at a December meeting the worth of being party to the association. “In other words the association and the NZOTBA is fragmenting, so its house is not yet in order,” Mr Robertshaw said. "We also understand that the number that are members (2400) are a fraction of the total (25,000) it purports to represent.

“The executive will continue to recognise the Hamess Horse Association as the spokesman for the kindred bodies, to give it a chance to persuade the dissenting bodies to join and increase its membership.

“However, this may prove difficult if not impossible if the NZOTBA withdraws.

“The association should have more time to prove itself,” he said. In discussion after Mr Robertshaw's delivery it was stated that the Southland branch of the NZOTBA had no intention of reaffiliating and that the Canterbury branch had divided further.

Richard Brosnan, representing the Waitaki Club, countered by saying if the association was represented, niggling troops “would fall into line,” and that without the association it was “a conference of trotting clubs, not a trotting conference.”