NEED FOR ADDITIONAL RACING AND TROTTING PERMITS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1521, 19 June 1919, Page 9

NEED FOR ADDITIONAL RACING AND TROTTING PERMITS.

As the annual meeting of the Racing Conference draws nearer it becomes more and more apparent that a vital need exists for additional racing and trotting permits in order tt> give further scope to the increased activities of the sport throughout the Dominion. A number of new clubs in districts where at present no racing is held have lately sprung into existence, and their claims for at least a one-day meeting a year are certainly deserving of favourable consideration, if the interests and welfare of the sport are to be studied. The position undoubtedly presents a problem to those in authority, whose duty it will be to consider the respective claims for new and additional permits and allocate dates according to the number available for the new season and the merits of the cases set forth by the different clubs. After a gloomy war period, all branches of sport should be given a free hand, and anything that tends to place an unfair restriction on racing, athletics and other outdoor pastimes will undoubtedly meet with the

stoutest opposition. In the past, the extraordinary growth of racing has been viewed with disfavour by a certain section of the community, whose anti-sport notions may have been acceptable in war-time, but can well be done without at the present period. Every effort should be made to foster racing and trotting in the Dominion, and it behoves the Government, which cannot fail to recognise the substantial financial help it has received during the war from the racing and trotting clubs, to see that additional permits are granted in the future with a view to simplifying the position which has naturally arisen as a consequence of the expansion of the sport in both islands. There is no lack of evidence to demonstrate that far too few permits are issued in New Zealand to deal fairly and satisfactorily with the increasing demands of racing, while no valid excuses can now be offered for ob’structing the sport by withholding a reasonable number of additional permits.