C.J.C. hopes for big complex at Riccarton

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 33

C.J.C. hopes for big complex at Riccarton

The biggest building development ever undertaken at Riccarton racecourse could get off the ground in about two years, the chairman of the Canterbury Jockey Club, Mr John Austin, told members at their annual meeting last evening.

Mr Austin said the club envisaged a complex to replace the old stewards’ stand, probably incorporating members’ facilities, dining areas, corporate sponsors’ and entertainment areas.

“It is very much in the conceptual stage, and much will depend on the response of the Racing Authority, but we hope to have more specific details for our next annual meeting,” Mr Austin said last evening. Mr Austin said his club had been giving high priority to improvements to training facilities at Riccarton and the returfing of a section of the course proper and the installation of an auto-

mated irrigation scheme, along with work planned for the future, reflected the club’s wish to provide conditions allowing for horses to be trained to perform at the peak of ability. With 280 horses in training there, Riccarton was the third busiest centre of that kind in New Zealand. Mr Austin said he wondered if perhaps Riccarton had reached its optimum number. The expense of providing permanent stables ' and improvements to facilities had created a loss of $32,000. To a member, Mrs Nan Beck, who criticised the condition of the plough training track — "nothing has been done to it for about 30 years” — Mr Austin said the club would investigate and had already planned for work on the No. 6 and 7 grasses in the spring. Mr Russell Boyd, the treasurer of the club, said

that the main factor influencing the adverse bottom line result in the club’s financial year had been the need to take up the New Zealand Racing Authority’s subsidised assistance on deferred maintenance work. In recognising the need to ensure that major clubs had to be viable, in order to provide a base for the strengthening of the provincial and country clubs, the Racing Authority had been most supportive in the areas of stakes subsidies, track subsidies and the deferred maintenance subsidy, Mr Boyd said. “It was not only the introduction of inter-track betting that improved our turnover — more so it was the positive approach by your committee and management to present a separate inter-track betting facility on

the course,” Mr Boyd said. Mr Boyd warned that the meeting’s approval of a recommendation providing for a change to the annual balance date of the club would have quite a traumatic effect on the bottom line financial surplus for the club’s 15month operations to July 31, 1988. Mr Boyd said the proposal to amend the club’s financial year brought it into line with the racing season but where the club would have been looking to a very acceptable cash surplus for the year ending April 30, 1988, the 15month period to July 31 next year would turn that surplus into a sizeable loss. The months of May, June and July in any year, he said, earned minimal income with continuing overhead and standing charges.