ATC keen to start again in June with penalty-free racing to stimulate field sizes

The Auckland Trotting Club is confident it can run race meetings in June and is promoting a novel idea to encourage as many horses back to the track as possible.

ATC vice president Jamie MacKinnon wants to see harness racing resume in Auckland sooner than anticipated, providing New Zealand moves out of the level 4 COVID-19 lockdown on schedule.

And in order to fill fields, while public track trainers in particular get their charges fit, the club is proposing penalty-free racing for two months.

“We want to encourage trainers to get their horses back as quickly as possible so owners and the industry can get some money coming in,” says MacKinnon.

“We’re in a time of crisis and we need to chuck out the rule book. I’m told there will be dates for June and the club supports penalty-free racing until the new season.”

Jamie MacKinnon … we need to chuck out the rule book.Under the plan, which the ATC hopes will find favour at Harness Racing New Zealand, horses would initially be rerated after wins but would revert to their original points come August 1.

MacKinnon says after canvassing most trainers, the club has been surprised by how many horses will be ready to race in early June.

“Will there be 10 races with full fields? Probably not, but we might get, say, six races of eight horses.”

MacKinnon says the club is likely to restrict races to a mile in the first instance as horses don’t have to be fully fit to compete at the sprint distance. The concept had already proven popular in the months leading up to the lockdown.

“I know there’s been talk about Auckland alternating with Cambridge in the first few weeks but we’ll be pushing to race every week. Why disadvantage the horse population up here by racing only every second week?

“While I’m a supporter of Cambridge, racing is going to need Government funding, and there’ll only be so much money to go round. Right now the focus should be on getting Addington and Auckland up and running.”

MacKinnon said while the club has to be prudent on the purses it can offer when it is haemorrhaging money on its building project, it is still committed to putting all its HRNZ funding into stakes.

“We’re the only club in New Zealand that puts 105% of its money back into stakes - Cambridge pays 80% - so whatever the new deal is on prize money, Auckland will still be higher.”

MacKinnon says the ATC will be further discussing race programmes with trainers and keeping nominations as open as possible to ensure every horse can get a start.

“Everyone wants to get back sooner than July and we think there‘ll be a lot of horses ready. Trainers aren’t taking their usual winter break and the fields for July and August should be larger than we’ve seen in previous seasons.”