Bonus nights at the Park to signal the start of desperately needed increases in prizemoney

The Auckland Trotting Club has begun a drive to lift its stakes which it hopes will help reinvigorate harness racing in the north.

On the last week of nominated months, the club will run bonus nights where the minumum stakes will be $20,000 and $25,000.

Tonight at Alexandra Park the grade races have purses of only $12,000 and $14,500.

The scheme will start on October 20 and November 24, then resume in February, giving trainers and owners some long overdue hope that the club can climb out of the hole it dug for itself with its failed building developments.

Racing director Karen Blanchard said as well as benefitting horses across the grades, prizemoney for many feature races would also increase, with an extra $500,000 to be injected before the end of July.

“We expect this to more than double to $1 million plus in the next racing year, starting August 1.”

Blanchard said minimum $20,000 stakes on all premier meetings would also return to Auckland, with funding from Harness Racing New Zealand.

Jamie Mackinnon … “Our priority is to get more back to stakeholders.”Funding for the planned increases will come from an operating surplus which the club has enjoyed this year, according to ATC president Jamie Mackinnon.

“We have a strong balance sheet (from rent and gaming machines). We have a surplus of roughly $1 million and we’ve decided to put half of that into stakes and half into reserves.

“The question was how to best allocate the money? In the past when we’ve split increases over all meetings it was barely recognisable as it was so diluted.

“This time we’ve looked at months not full of feature type racing and identified seven or eight months of the season where the last meeting will be a bonus night.

“Auckland has always shown it wants to put as much money into stakes as it can but that had to be halted with the issues we had with the apartments.”

Mackinnon said the club would pay off its bank loans as it realised assets. Now that council had finally given title for the land involved in the long-running $50 million deal with Gleneagles, it would be settled soon.

Mackinnon said there had also been progress with the proposed sale of its Franklin training centre, details of which would be revealed to members at the club’s annual general meeting next month.

“We’re doing what we can to turn the corner. Our priority is to get more back to stakeholders and that’s not easy when you’re not racing every week.”

John Street … “We might stick around if it’s going to get better.”Positive start

Lincoln Farms’ owner John Street said the stakes announcement, albeit minor, was very positive.

“That’s fantastic. It’s a great start and we might stick around if it’s going to get better.”

Street has made no secret of the fact Lincoln Farms was being forced to send more horses to Australia because of the poor stakes and handicapping system here.

“We can’t break even here at the moment. I can afford it but a lot of the other guys are eating paint off the walls.”

Street quoted Argyle as a perfect example, a horse who won four races here and just $29,702 before reaching a level where he was uncompetitive, forced to race against the best pacers.

Argyle, who runs tonight at Kilmore, won A$11,400 in his first start in the state.