RANGITIKEI RACING CLUB.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 57, 4 September 1909, Page 3

RANGITIKEI RACING CLUB.

THE NEW COURSE. The Rangitikei Racing Club is one of the oldest institutions in the North Island, having celebrated its jubilee two years ago. A little while back the club purchased the freehold of come ninety acres of the property on which the meetings are held. It was also decided a year ago to lay down a new- course and erect up-to-date buildings. Assisted by an energetic coarse committee, the work has progressed satisfactorily, and is now almost completed. This week a representative of The Post acoepted Mr. Goodall's invitation to inspect the property. The course runs some distance further back than the one formerly used, and the buildings are erected on a natural terrace, which runs for some distance along one end of the property. The stewards' stand, a handsome two-storied structure, provides accommodation, for secretary, jockeys, and clerk of scales on the ground floor. Upstairs is a stewards' room and press room leading on to a balcony 30ft by 12ft. The new grandstand, about three chains away_ from the other building, will conveniently accommodate about 1500 persons. It is reached by four rows of steps from the front of the building. Underneath the building are ladies' cloak-room, kitchen, public luncheon room, stewards' luncheon room, and bar. A new totalisator house has been built at the end of the lawn and will accommodate three machines. The enclosures, lawn, saddling paddock, and birdcage coyer an acre and a half. A range of scraping sheds and loose-boxes and a fiand roll, 16ft by 16tt, have been erected for the • convenience of 1 jcal trainers and visiting owners. The course proper is about a mile and three chains round, and Ihree chains wide. Fourteen chains of the course in the straight was sown in grass last autumn, and has done well; in fact, the entire track is ready to race on in the spring. It is proposed to malte the six furlongs' start a straight one, starting somewhere near where the steeplechase start was. A splendid view of .the whole coarse can be obtained from the stands or the terrace, which rnns parallel with the track to the entrance of the straight. It was considered advisable not to hold the steeplechase meeting on the course this year, as the recent rains had made the course heavy in some parts, and racing on it would have affected the new growth of grass. The summer meeting at New Year will be held at Bulls, and regular patrons of ,the old club will be pleasantly surprised at the transformation brought about by the expenditure of several thousand pounds. DEATH OF A RACEHORSE. By Telegraph.—Press Association.- Copyright. SYDNEY, 3rd September. The racer Rawera, which t-ecently arrived from New Zealand, has died from pneumonia. [Rawera, by Rangipuhi—Tauera, a maiden performer, was shipped to Sydney from Wellington a fortnight ago, in company with Mundic and Kairoma. She competed unsuccessfully at the Grand National meeting, and was owned by Mr. W. H. Rooney, of Christchurch.]