They’ve taken our dates but they’re not getting our land - Avondale buckles in for a fight

The Avondale Jockey Club might have been frozen out of the racing calendar for the new season but it won’t be handing over its land to anyone.

“They’re not getting it,” vice president Jan Skinner said when asked what the club planned to do in the wake of the Racing Industry Transition Agency’s snub.

“We’d rather donate the land to the local Plunket Society than see it sold.”

Under the recommendations of the Messara report, Avondale was one of the main tracks earmarked for sale given its value before COVID-19 struck was between $250 million and $300 million.

It and a number of other racecourses formed a major part of the Messara plan to sell targeted assets and use the proceeds to revitalise the ailing industry.

Jan Skinner … Avondale is a community asset.RITA finally wielded the axe today, industry insiders believing the action was very likely a condition of the industry’s $72.5 million bail-out by the Government on Tuesday.

RITA had previously gone on record as saying while there was a need for fewer racing venues, any change should to be progressed through the already established joint-industry Future Venue Plan.

Legally centralising ownership of club assets - the contentious “land grab” - was a step too far and clubs needed to be properly consulted.

Also denied galloping dates next season are Te Teko, Te Awamutu, Gisborne, Wairoa, Waipukurau, Waterlea, Motukarara, Waikouaiti and Omakau.

The Racing Reform Bill, designed to arm RITA with the power to unilaterally cash in assets, has yet to be passed and Skinner said the club had been asked if it was prepared to keep the track maintained for trials and in case it was needed if the Counties track became too heavy to race on.

“But we’re not going to be the off-course substitute if a meeting is abandoned and we’ve said no to running trials again. Why would we keep the track prepared with no guarantee of getting a race meeting.”

The flier which the Avondale Jockey Club handed out to raise awareness of the ‘land grab’.The Avondale track has traditionally offered one of the best racing surfaces in the north, thanks to some of the pioneering track drainage work the club has undertaken over the years. It has regularly staged massive trial days of 30 heats with horses tripping up from the Waikato.

And that’s one of the reasons why Skinner and the Jockey Club committee are so disappointed to be left out when before the coronavirus struck it had been promised seven race meetings.

“Avondale hasn’t cost the industry one cent and when we have a raceday all the work is done by volunteers.”

Vision for the future

For the last five years Avondale has been working with an internationally renowned racecourse consultancy firm to develop a blueprint for the future development of its facilities, which included a new synthetic racing surface inside the existing turf track.

The club had put forward its self-funding vision for the future to New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing , and was about ready to start its implementation with the demolition of the old public grandstand when the Messara report and NZTR’s venue plan consultation document was released.

Skinner said Avondale was determined to continue to offer a range of sporting, cultural and recreational activities to support the Avondale and West Auckland communities.

The Avondale Sunday market has been operating for 40 years.“We own the land but Avondale has always been a community asset. The infield is used as a sports field by the locals and even during the COVID-19 lockdown we kept the gates open so people could exercise there.”

The Avondale Sunday market was also an integral part of the community and had been operating on the grounds for nearly 40 years. New Zealand’s largest one-day market, with a strong Asian and Polynesian influence, it attracts up to 20,000 visitors in a day, according to the club’s website.

Skinner, whose father Harry trained on the course in 1949, has been an administrator at the club for 31 years and says she’d rather see it turned into a grass harness racing track than lost in a land grab by people looking for some quick money to replace millions squandered over years of mismanagement.