Stratford loses its race date

The gloves have come off after the city boys elbowed aside their country cousins to secure a prime date on the racing calendar.

The Stratford Racing Club's popular New Year's Eve race day – its only meeting of the year – has been nabbed by Taranaki Thoroughbred Racing, with the SRC handed a low-key midweek fixture on January 20 as a replacement.

Stratford Racing Club president Brian Forbes yesterday said he was "bloody annoyed" and confirmed the club would make a submission to the New Zealand Racing Board to have the meeting reinstated.

The change has been listed in the first draft of race dates for the 2010-11 season. Stratford has until 4pm on March 31 to forward its submission before a second draft, and generally the final racing calendar, is settled in June.

The New Plymouth-based TTR applied for the date last year and Stratford officials reacted quickly and angrily, organising a "Save our Raceday" petition, which was signed by more than 2000 people at the New Year's Eve meeting.

"When I became president here, I did my level best to work in with TTR and we were going to run a meeting down here for them in April. But they've just kicked us in the guts," Forbes said.

The December 31 meeting has been held at Stratford for a number of years, after the club was reluctantly pushed off the New Year's Day date it held for several decades.

After the TTR applied for the New Year's Eve date, it proposed the Stratford club hold the meeting in New Plymouth.

"My thoughts on that is that we want the Stratford Cup to be run at Stratford. The people of Stratford do not want the meeting to be run at New Plymouth. We know that. If we did go up there, TTR would want us to pay $10,000 rental, I imagine, and we've got a better course here than New Plymouth, so why should we go up there and race?

"We've got a good course here, a true stayers' course, that is under-utilised and we're trying to get more race days here. That's why I approached Hobbs [TTR chief executive Carey Hobbs] about running their April meeting here, initially."

Due to the scrap over the race date, Forbes confirmed he had personally cut ties with the TTR.

He said for several years he worked helping load horses into the starting gates at meetings at Pukekura Raceway, but when the controversy over the New Year's Eve date surfaced he quit the job.

"I haven't worked there for a meeting or two and I'll never work for them again."

Forbes said the January 20 date was a lemon in more ways than one.

"It's a working day and it's a day where it would be hard to make any money out of.

"It's also only a couple of days before the Wellington Cup meeting and a lot of trainers use our Stratford Cup as a lead-in to the meeting at Trentham, so that's against it, too."

This year the January 20 race date, now proposed for the SRC, was held at New Plymouth by TTR and promoted as the "Bowlers Day" meeting, as it was held during the week of the Taranaki Open fours bowls tournament.

Hobbs yesterday said the club planned to use the date to create a two-day Christmas carnival, starting with the annual December 27 date.

He said the proposal for the SRC to run its meeting at Pukekura Raceway on December 31 had been "categorically" turned down.

"They [SRC] turned down that offer, so we've just got to move on with our own plans for the day."

He said the club planned to continue with the popular family funday concept on one of the days with the "young persons' entertainment day" on the other day.

- © Fairfax NZ News