Sporting & Dramatic REVIEW AND Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette. With which is incorporated the Weekly Standard. THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1906. THE RACING CONFERENCE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIV, Issue 854, 19 July 1906, Page 5

Sporting & Dramatic REVIEW AND Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette. With which is incorporated the Weekly Standard. THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1906. THE RACING CONFERENCE.

The delegates to the New Zealand Racing Conference met on Thursday last, rattled through the order paper, and completed the business in one day. Summed up, the result of their deliberations amounts to the fact that all the delegates were perfectly satisfied with things as they are, and therefore did nothing. Under the circumstances it was perhaps hardly necessary to hold the Conference at all, for of course it meant the entailing of considerable expense. Sir George Clifford, the president, reviewed the work of the year, which he thought had been a very good one. A motion by Mr. Stead to exclude the putting of those in arrear with their entry and acceptance money on the forfeit list was lost. The squire of Yaldhurst considered that these payments should be cash, in which most people will be disposed to entirely agree with him, but the delegates thought otherwise. A motion in the name of the Auckland Racing Club: “ That the Metropolitan Committee shall have the power to refuse to approve of the programme of a meeting of any totalisator club which permits any bookmaker to bet on its course” was passed with the alteration of the word “ shall” to “ may,” and the deletion of the words “ have the power.” This, of course, entirely defeats the object of the motion, which in its present form means nothing. As a matter of fact this is perhaps the best thing that could have happened, as it leaves it optional with any club to license the bookmakers. The delegates also left it in the hands of the president to consider the advisability of the Conference issuing its own Official Calendar, a report to be made to the next Conference. This

is an important matter, which should undoubtedly have been attended to. A similar motion was brought up at the previous Conference, when it was also left to the president to deal with. One would have considered twelve months almost time enough to make enquiries, but apparently it is not. A committee of business men could have arranged the matter in a few hours, and it very certainly needs arranging, a fact which cannot be denied by anyone who has made any study of the question. However, tha members of the Conference do not deem the question of sufficient importance to deal with now, and it has been shelved for another year. This and the passing of the totalisator permits and dates for next season as recommended by the Permits and Dates Committee constituted virtually all the business that was done.