RaceForm stuck in the starting gates - are we losing our only form guide?

The future of the country’s sole racing news and form guide remains up in the air today.

While the Racing Industry Transition Agency has circulated documents spelling out that is planning to stop investing in both daily newspaper form and the weekly publication of RaceForm, the magazine’s editor Dennis Ryan has not been informed.

“We have contacted the executive chair (Dean McKenzie) notifying him of our intention to return once thoroughbred racing resumes and are awaiting a reply.

“We have some exciting plans, which we have previously shared with them, and hoped to be back publishing on July 1.”

Matamata Racing Club chairman Dennis Ryan who edits RaceForm.RITA’s support package for RaceForm includes advertising and, more crucially, it provides the fields and form for New Zealand and Australian racing.

Ryan says while RaceForm carries news and feature stories on gallops and harness, a majority of people buy it for the fields, form and selections, with Best Bets now incorporated in the magazine.

“We depend on the TAB for the fields and form. Given the tight time frame that we operate under - we go to the printers at 2pm on Wednesday soon after the fields close - we need a direct file feed. We couldn’t rely on any other way.”

Ryan says the model which RaceForm uses of Friday through Sunday racing, with fields and editorial, had the support of McKenzie and the RITA board who were instrumental in getting it off the ground.

Ryan says he’d need to start cranking up the operation in a couple of weeks time.