A few observations from a Kiwi now living in Sydney: First, NZ has the problem of market size. Simply too little demand. This leads to all the big money gravitating to Bettors Delight, etc. The Top End of Town. Easy money and a very few players get to play. There aren't enough buyers to support the middle ground at our yearling Sales. Australia better in this regard, with more buyers, more races, etc, but the same issues face the industry there. Not so it seem in parts of the USA. Recent Lexington Sales results should encourage us all. The success at Lexington Sales didn’t come packaged as ou...

By BARRY LICHTER Harness racing chiefs must find ways to stem the gradual demise of grass track racing in the north before it’s too late. The warning comes from the Harness Racing Owners’ Association which is concerned at both the lost opportunities to promote the code and the likelihood of a drop in the racing population. Whereas harness fans once enjoyed grass track meetings at eight venues in the Waikato and further north, it seems there might be only a two week window in January for three Sunday picnic dates. Harness Racing Waikato has so far confirmed only Tauranga on January ...

BY BARRY LICHTER The Harness Jewels finale needs to be moved to summer so alternate venues can be tried. That’s the call from the Harness Racing Owners’ Association as it seeks ways to reinvigorate the concept which it says has fallen flat in recent years. Association chairman Neil Bennett believes the marquee event needs to move away from the now established annual switch between Cambridge in the north and Ashburton in the south. “They have to do something and Southland and Nelson are two tracks on my radar.’’ Bennett says the harness code won’t succeed in attracting non core r...

Interesting reading 1617-hrnz-kpi-report-as-at-30-october-2016

1617-hrnz-board-news-7-november-2016

media-release-owners-appointment-on-hrnz-board-november-2016

At the AGM held on 29 July a new constitution was approved. NZTOA- Approved Constitution

Hi All, Apologies for no reports the last 2 months but HRNZ were going to do a summary of the board meetings which was going to be circulated.   I think that you would have caught up with the new points system being trialed in the North Island effective 1.08.16. I think that this will be a great concept and at the end of the day horses will hopefully race like for like. We have a log jam in the co c1 grades with a lot of horses having to have many starts before they even win a race. When you have trainers saying  that they have had a win with a horse but have to tell the owners w...

In no particular order  I will comment as follows The Super Club Proposal  . To be fair to say this proposal  is not going down well with the clubs. I think they will all agree that something has to change but at this stage the clubs are not  happy putting  in their assets to a central point and they are certainly not happy about losing their identity. HRNZ have discussed an alternative option to the superclub model to some clubs and regions . Under the model proposed by some clubs, they would retain their identity however would pool their financial results from off course and fixed odds...