ELLERSLIE RACECOURSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20024, 14 August 1928, Page 10

ELLERSLIE RACECOURSE.

SCHEME OF IMPROVEMENTS. TOTAL OUTLAY OF £200,000. The extensive scheme of improvements to be carried , out at Ellerslie by the Auckland Racing Club will cost a total of £200.000. Reference to the scheme was made by the president, Sir Edwin Mitchelson, at the annual meeting of members yesterday, it being stated that up to the present work costing £6362 had been completed. Sir Edwin said the scheme provided for a new members' stand costing £60.000. which would be erected in a year or so, the enlargement of both the main and derby stands, the abolition of the horseboxes in the lawn enclosure, which is to be enlarged, the extension of the racecourse by taking in nearly the whole of the long strip of allotments that were purchased from the Peach Estate some years ago, and on that side of the course providing for part of the steeplechase course to be entirely separate from the course proper; The totalisator houses were also to be improved and extended. "In view of the projected scheme of works involving an outlay of at least £200,000, it has been deemed necessary to reduce the stakes for this year and to make a reduction in future classic races," Sir Edwin added. "Notwithstanding these reductions stakes will be provided exceeding £60,000. Your committee has been intensely disappointed at the meagre support given by owners to our weight-for-age races, and it will be the owners' own fault if the two weight-for-age races are eliminated from our future summer programmes."