Ashburton Clubs look to future

The Ashburton Trotting and Thoroughbred Racing Clubs know there are challenges ahead but undeterred, they have plans in the pipeline to attract both harness racing and galloping trainers to their track.

General Manager Jeff McLaughlin and Ashburton Trotting Club President Peter Larkin are excited about expanding their operation.

The Clubs currently have six barns on the property, but plans are afoot to build two more if funding allows.

“There’s a fourteen horse barn that will hopefully go up in the next six months. We still have enough land to build a twenty horse barn. With the way the price of land is up here it’s prohibitive for a lot of the younger ones trying to start out if they haven’t got family money behind them,” Jeff said.

He added that the Clubs would also be more than happy to look at leasing the barn to smaller trainers who may just want a handful of boxes.

“If there were three or four young trainers with three or four horses each that wouldn’t put the raceway off by any means.”

McLaughlin says the Harness Racing and Thoroughbred Clubs have good reserves to help fund the development and added that the raceway is “exploring all the avenues” to obtain additional funding for the project.

“It may be someone wants to relocate up here to be closer to racing in the late September to Christmas period. Some may want a satellite barn or a second stable. We’re open to any suggestions.”

The Clubs are also looking at utilising a four acre plot of land down by the back straight.

“It’s currently in trees but we’d like to develop it into a one stop horse shop. Maybe we have a vet clinic. That’s in the strategic plan for the Raceway in the next ten years.”

He said it could also include a water walker or a swimming pool for horses.

McLaughlin said he’d like to see all horse sports based at the track.

“We’d be happy to have it all here.”

From a harness racing perspective the course has its main all weather racetrack, a 1200 metre sand training track and a separate jogging track.

“We get a lot of good comments about the surfaces. We’re pretty pedantic about that. In this day and age when we’re looking at horse utilisation, we’ve got to keep horses sound. We’ve also got a separate track for jogging machines, so the jogging horses aren’t working on either of the training tracks,” Peter said.

Brent and Tim White, Gerard O’Reilly and John Morrison are the track’s biggest harness racing users.

Currently there are between eighty and one hundred horses trained on the track with ten resident trainers based on course and other trainers floating horses in when required.

The track has a long history of producing some top racehorses. Trainers like Dick Prendergast and Denice Swain trained on the course while John Lischner and Brian Saunders used it on a regular basis.

Unfortunately the Harness Jewels no longer exist, but the Club has reignited its energy for it’s Labour Day meeting.

The day includes heats of the Woodlands Stud Sires Stakes for two year old colts and geldings, the Nevele R Fillies Series and the Dunstan Horsefeeds Sires Stakes for two year old filles. The Listed NZ Sires Stakes Sophomore along with the time honoured Ashburton Flying Stakes and the Ashburton Trotters Sprint, make for a super days racing.

“That’s going to be the show piece and it’s geared to lead those horses to Cup and Show Day,” McLaughlin said.

The Club continues to grow the June meeting with the Sapling Stakes and the Helen Pope for two year old fillies being the highlight races.

“It a chance for those horses that may not be targeting Sires Stakes races to earn good money,” Larkin said.

The Ashburton all weather circuit is regarded as one of the quickest in the country and the Club is always looking at ways to keep it in that spot.

“The Trotting Club are just in the process of applying to buy a new track conditioner. There’ll be more sand applied to the main track prior to Labour Weekend,” McLaughlin said.

The Club has moved away from racing over 1609 metres as a short distance dispatch point, preferring races over 1700 metres.

“We find it gives the drivers more options going into that first bend. We still run some races over the mile.”

Larkin says there’s no money to be made running a training centre but the industry desperately needs them.

“Horse numbers are one of the issues now and that’s one of the reasons we think the time is right to establish a training centre in Ashburton. The overheads are so high to maintain your own property and we think if we want to retain our horse numbers, facilities like this need to be developed. The financial returns of a training centre are not there and at the moment the Clubs are subsidising it. I’ve heard that Pukekohe is similar,” he said.

But he added that now’s the time to develop these facilities before young people are lost to the industry.

“If they can’t get a property they tend to drift out of the industry,” he said.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink