Daveysdoll

Thanks Craig, it was an awesome day and a rewarding one for the club.

There are approximately 80-90 horses trained at Stratford roughly 10 are Harness Not quiet sure of how many New Plymouth gallop trainers come to stratford to train but as a guess it’s approx 12 the rest are stratford trained gallopers the New Plymouth track is closed regularly and those trainers come to stratford

Well the fight should be on! But it would certainly help if the club hierarchy actually had a historical tie to Stratford rather than not, as the fight would then have more meaning behind it. Yes the December 29th meeting had a huge crowd, mainly due in part to it possibly being the last gallops meeting to be held there, so where were those people in previous years? Why is there a 5 member committee providing an interim report to Winston Peters by the end of February and clubs sending their recommendations to NZTR by March 2019, for New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing to consider all and any proposals. ??? New Plymouth’s track is the worst in Taranaki to train and race on, so its logical then to have both codes race there.... NO. That’s why Stratford is used by a number of NP trainers as it is a better kept track for both training and racing on, thanks in most part to a small but dedicated strong group of volunteers/life members who know the true worth of keeping the track in great shape, these amount to countless hours of selfless pride in a venue and more importantly a Stratford institution for both Gallops and Harness Racing in our region for over 100 years. If they delicence Stratford as a racing venue then it’s up to US the community to become members or volunteers to keep it as a training track at least. So who is in charge of closing tracks around the country.... is it The Minister for Racing or New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing? NZTR should have no authority to act on behalf of NZHR - New Zealand Harness Racing and it’s body of members throughout the country. I know that as far as Harness Racing is concerned if we lost the right to even train out of Stratford alone then there would be a huge possibility that your local trainers will give up training and that won’t be a good thing for the racing industry as a whole or the regions here in NZ given that the proposed track closures around the country will impact greatly on the small local but valuable trainers in the industry. These are the trainers that bring in new owners/followers into the racing industry, their fees are attainable due in part to many of these trainers do their own shoeing for instance and some costs aren’t passed on to the owner/s These owners aren’t interested in syndicated ownership, being one small part of a group of people they don’t know. They want to be involved mostly in local for local, that’s the heart of racing, take away the heart and you are left with a decline in horses, trainers, owners, punters and followers. As local people follow local trainers, and in a small rural community many remote farmers only come to town for these annual race days, that’s when they catch up often their neighbours, and other remote farmers in the region, it’s the one of only a handful of days they leave their farms to socialise with the towns folk, they won’t travel to the larger towns or cities to have a day out. Many trainers won’t want to travel out of their towns to train their horses, thereby adding more expense to their owners, so the decline in horse ownership and horse numbers will have the desired effect that NZTR would be looking for as NZTR are only thinking of Thoroughbreds not their poor cousins as they see us in the Harness Racing game. Rant Over