UNSUCCESSFUL RACING

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 71, 24 March 1934, Page 21

UNSUCCESSFUL RACING

MANAWATU NO EXCEPTION

NEED OF CENTRALISATION

Excellent weather, fine and mild with hardly a breath of -wind, favoured the Manawatu Racing Club's Autumn Meeting at Awapuni this week, but despite such considerable advantages the fixture could not be called a success. The fields were very small for the time of season, the attendance, compared with even th& last year or two, appeared meagre indeed, and the turnover reflected the changed conditions, with a decline of over 20 per cent. The result, however, was/more or less in accord with the present" general • trend, at this part o£ the Dominion, at least, and it should be growing fairly obvious now that the. sport of racing . needs to find a. lower level yet .before it can , feel itself -again on stable footing. •-■ ' . Like so many other.racing bodies during the last half-year, the Manawatu Glufr set itself out to assist owners by providing slightly increased stakes, but the response, though promising at nomination, was not encouraging. The average field was smaller than it has been for many years at corresponding meetings, and while fields are so apparently incapable of filling there can hardly develop any general, improvement in the outlook. It seems more or less certain now that few clubs in the southern part of the Xorth Island can keep up their stakes next season,^ so the prizes for which owners will be competing shortly must necessarily become even more unsatisfactory, than they are at present. The gradual centralisation of racing at a few of the most accessible courses appears .the only obvious remedy that. offers itself at the moment.

The question of centralisation has been discussed previously, but it is easier to state the general proposition than to eug!4«;t how it might be set into operation. One and all are beginning to realise that it would be better if all the racing was held on' just a few central courses. Yet there is not, and perhaps never will be voluntarily, any even approximate agreement as to which courses these shall be..-.-.-.'--.- -

. Surrounding even the smallest clubs, no matter to -what precarious straits they may have come, is still the wraith of lingering associations, struggling to retain diaphanous- if not too solid form, and these clubs would break themselves, their'guarantors, and who else they can .r.ather than, give up before they must "their last- hold on a tangible existence. Clubs that have- ceased to be profitable bodies, however, have little hope now of revival, for the times that made them have passed. Clubs that are seriously waning are for the most part only their successors along the same road. Such clubs are at present superfluous links in a former pastime that has in modern days become a business,, and, before this business can begin' to " prosper they must go, or. at least coalesce—sentiment and ail-notwithstanding. The problem of solution lies outside the powers of the highest racing authorities, whose control is of' the sport itself and its conduct; • not of the individual racing clubs,.who themselves are completely cor.porate bodies in charge of their own' wellbeing. What the authorities might do, however, as there seems no reasonable probability of voluntary readjustment, is to recommend the setting up of another lacing commission, as in 1910, 1914, and 1920, which would completely review the present conditions of the sport and make recommendations that legislation might subsequently, enforce. It is without question' a very difficult and serious probJem/.tljat has to be.tackled, but the.sport, so far as it' is possible to perceive ahead, will; not emerge out of its present >pass until the problem is faced and the remedies, however distasteful they may be, ■applied. ■■:-'■•' '