GROWTH OF RACING

Evening Star, Issue 18173, 13 January 1923, Page 14

GROWTH OF RACING

NEARLY £10,000,000 A YEAR. GOVERNMENT COLLECTED £553,000. £7,000,000 IN DIVIDENDS. In recant, years (states the Auckland ‘ Herald ’) racing as lihe most popular sport in the dominion has developed to a noteworthy extent. It is surely an attractive pastime that draws an -aip-par ent-ly easy esipomdituro of nearly £10,000,000 a year. That is the sum for slakes, totalisator investments, and general racing expenses lor the past year. Tor the racing year ending July 31 lasil tho racing clubs of th-o dominion paid out in state tho sum of £500,020, while the public invested £6,154,854. There were 138 meetings, with 227 days of racing, and) 1,792 races. In addition, tho trotting clubs paid stakes totalling £130,000, as compared with £35,000 in the season of 1910-11, a remarkable expansion of what is, after all, relatively a very minor branch of the national sport. Details as to tho number of trots and tho vain© of investments show that trotting is steadily gaining in tho measure of expenditure and popularity. There lias been no suggestion that during tho Cbrislmostido holidays tho dominion had an excess of home racing. In several centres oi population tho complaint is that racing was too severely restricted. And yet from December 26 to January 4 something like, a nine days’ wonder was provided an tho form of racing as a holiday attraction. The number of race meetings was exactly double that of trotting clubs’ meetings, and the total was twenty-four. Into that short period there wore crowded forty-four racing days, with over 300 races. Auckland led tho dominion with seven days’ racing and trots, which attracted, as officially estimated, an attendance ot 112,000 spectators. Tho totalise tor investments amounted to over £578,000, as compared with £652,000 at the corresponding meetings last summer.

In citing the aggregates of investments at a score of tho holiday race meetings throughout tho dominion during tho holidays, it should ho mentioned that the, total sum recorded is altogether nut of proportion to tho money actually spent in bets. Th-o total should be divided by three at least to .make reasonable allowance for the numerous rein vestments of (ho same money. This is a. feature of race gambling (hat is ignored by tho passionate reformer of tho people’s pastimes. Tho official retails of the -totalisator investments at these holiday meetings show that £1,334,716 10s was invested, as against £1.489,293 IDs tho previous summer season at the sa.ino clubs’ races and trots. The table is worth placing on record ; —■

Totals ... £.1,334.7165 £1,189,2951 Tho Slate, without taking any risk in backing win tiers, faires as well as any of the mulitude of race patrons. Last racing year the Government collected £553.118 from tho various meetings, and the raring clubs got £610,656. The amount paid in dividends was nearly £7,000,000. From today till the end of the present raaing season (July 31) there -will bo no fewer than eighty-three race meetings with lot race days; providing approximately a, thousand races. The trotting fixtures for tiho tame •period provide twentyeight meetings, with thirty-six days. So there will ho ample opportunity to lose money on slow horses before tho close of itho racing season. It is thirty-seven years since the establishment of tho New Zealand' Racing Conference, and it can rightly claim to have purged tho pastime of many of its former abuses and objectionable features. The clubs are bound to devote their profits to their own improvement, and not to dividends for eager shareholders.

1922-23. 1921-22. AncMa.iixl 1 Tv.r. ... £886,9201 £439,151-1 Auckland T.C. ... 191,659 J 213,108* Manowatu 12-1,150 ,156,569 Canterbury Park 97.614 94,991 Marlon 66,138 70,228 Dunedin ... .„ 57,861 64,438 Slra-tford 53,91?. 58,845 Southland ... ... 50,582 53,145 Taranaki 45,652 57,000 Wnirarapa 38,7551 35,105* fri’oy-mouffli J.C. 36,75,3 37,643 Hawke’s Bay ... 32,375 4-3,506 Ashburton 25,651 26,091 Greymouth T.C. 21,991 27.481 Wyndham 19,7361, 21.719 Westland ... ... 18,705 24,362 Waikmrait.l 17,934 18,559 frOTO 17,7034 18,212 Westport. 17,230 19,420 Waipukumi 10,490 8,719