RIVAL RACECOURSES.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 105, 5 July 1895, Page 3

RIVAL RACECOURSES.

(to the editor.! Sir, —In your recent issue of the Times I observe in your sporting columns that the Opunake Racing Club is divided in their opinion as to the rival racecourses proposed, which i 3 the subject of some comment just low. To be brief, lam astonished to see some of the members of the club proposing to take the Opunake racemeetings to Pihama. It is to be hoped those members will re-consider this very important matter, and I predict, after giving the question due deliberation, they will come to the conclusion that they would be doing a great injustice to the town of Opunako. In taking, what I anticipate in the near future, two meetings per annum, why should we go five miles for a course, and the most perfect racecourse imaginable to be had on Mr Breach's .farm, and I have every confidence in that gentleman meeting the club half way in securing our race meetings to be kept in Opunake. A few of the members of the club are indeed magnifying things when they calculate on no lees than £3OO expenditure on the Opunake grounds. This is my humble opinion : And that is that I can point out a man in Opunake, who has, to my knowledge, ploughed the most difficult parts of Mr Breach's land without any obstacles whatsoever removed in front of the plough, and will venture to say that he would plough the required amount, and put the disc harrows on and lay it down in grass for the small sum of £SO or a little more or less, the club to find a roller, •which would be always on the ground ; I have no dcubt next January the course would be second to none on the coast. Pointing out the absurdity from every point of view in taking our races away, or in other words, our birthright, I should like to enlarge on, but space would not albw. It is reasonable to expect that the first'step the storekeepers in Pihama would take would be to erect stables, &c, taking advantage of our beautiful mistake, and Opunake races would be pure and simple only on paper. Sir, let me conclude with the hope that we build no more monuments in haste for our children to weep, over at leisure.—l am, &c, J. C. HIGKEY.