Initiative 'inhibited’

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 38

Initiative 'inhibited’

PA Auckland The initiative of the Auckland Racing Club, is being “inhibited and stultified,” according to Mr Kevin McNamara, the president of the club.

In his address to members at the club’s annual meeting at Ellerslie on Monday, Mr McNamara criticised the New Zealand Racing Conference for ignoring Auckland’s request for additional dates.

He urged the conference to push harder for the introduction of Sunday racing and expressed wonder at the lack of urgency shown by the New Zealand Racing Authority and the Totalisator Agency Board over Thursday racing.

Mr McNamara said the club had had no increase in its number of race dates for four years, but its anniversary meeting had been downgraded to ’D* and ‘E’ ratings.

These were classifications specially designed for the occasion and the club was now seriously embarrassed by the specific requirements to run a low-key meeting coinciding with the national sales. He said he remembered the authority had indicated some years ago that its policy was to increase race dates where “the people and the money are.”

“This club, with a turnover in excess of $9O million a year, more than double its nearest competitor, and with two tracks capable of absorbing many more racedays, has not received one extra date in four years.” He was quite certain the club had fulfilled the strict requirements laid down by the authority for the granting of extra dates, but the conference did not even pass on the request for additional dates to the authority, which makes the final decision.

"In a year when we have assumed huge financial obligations and are able to provide regularly an on-course turnover in excess of $600,000 for even a low-key mid-week meeting, we are still denied the opportunity to provide a racing service for our own population and the tourist industry, as well as a means of increasing our revenue to meet commitments.” Mr McNamara asked members how they could expect the committee to have any confidence in the present structure of the conference executive, and in the narrow protectionist decisions of the authority “which serve to penalite the most progressive racing club in New Zealand and inhibit and stultity its initiative to the detriment of the whole industry.”