Big Improvements For Kensington Racegoers

Northern Advocate, 14 March 1947, Page 6

Big Improvements For Kensington Racegoers

WITH the races only a fortnight away, Kensington Park would normally present a busy scene with Northland candidates working each morning on the track. But, at the moment, the bulk of the work is being done by the caretaker (Mr George Johnson) and his assistants. The improvements they are carrying out will make a tremendous difference from the patrons’ point of view.

Gone are the days of the bottlenecks around the totalisator building. Gone, apparently, are the days of irksome congestion at the hub of every race meeting. This is the result of the Whangarei Racing Club’s decision to switch to the one-paddock system at Kensington for its future meetings. The fence which ran from the inside rail of the track to the north corner of the tote is gone. So has that which ran from the opposite corner at the north end of the tote to the buildings at the rear of the stands and iammed the people up against the turnstiles to the payout windows at the back of the tote building. The difference that the removal of these fences has made must be seen to be believed. The lawn appears as a green expanse, the totalisator is easily accessible at all points and there is plenty of room for people to line up at the buying windows and at the payout windows at the back. way NOT YEARS AGO?

Parking, too, will be confined to certain areas for the same purpose. The track itself has been baked very hard and rain is badly needed before Mr Johnson can even go to work on it with harrows.

The course will be mown next week and, even in its present state, would he in good racing order. The few horses which have been exercising have been kept well out from the inside rail and the main part of the track is in excellent shape. The hard nature of the ground, however, has restricted the pace of the workouts and actually very little ;n the way of tuning-up has been done at Kensington.

Several local horses are racing at Paeroa on Saturday and the following week-end, and are training there.

They will not arrive for the Whangarei meeting till race week. The one or two which are taken to Kensington in the mornings do little more than light work.

Now that the fences have been taken away, the first question asked is: Why was it not done years ago? That is a tribute to the club’s decision to adopt the one-paddock system. The picket fences which caused the congestion are now servihg a much more desirable purpose.

They have been erected along the outside rail of the track near the cattle pavilion of the Whangarei A & P. Society. There they set off the enlarged enclosure.

The road which runs through the course from Kensington Avenue t-s Stanley Street is to be closed to through traffic on race days, and this will prevent any congestion near the payout windows of the tote.