The following is the letter sent to HRNZ supporting their submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee considering aspects of the proposed Racing Bill.

I suppose all facets of life have frustrations built into them, and harness racing is no exception.

The lack of grass track opportunities in the Waikato this year is a real shame on a couple of levels. Given the experience in Canterbury, the difference between the number of people in attendance between an average meeting on the all-weather tracks, and the same meeting out in a country setting is often staggering.

Isn’t it about time that some sense of realism kicked in about two year-old racing in this Country?

Given the current climate of major emphasis on animal welfare in the racing industry, it is difficult to understand the reason why Radio Trackside would wish to advertise, almost promote, unnecessarily, that excessive whip use is occurring, whether it be reduced or not.

Unfortunately, 2020 has already proved to be anything but a ‘happy new year’, for a number of our leading horsemen with the awful incident involving Ricky May being followed closely by a horrendous accident at Cambridge.

I know it sounds like common sense, but apparently there have recently been a couple of occasions where the application of that emotion was absent.

There seems to be a fashionable trend by some in the Industry (not for the first time) to move away from standing starts and go virtually all mobile, and I notice the Southern Harness are looking at following it.

This year, I was, for the second time, invited to attend the Canterbury Cadets Prize Giving night held at the Casino. Once again it was a pleasure to see how many young people were mad keen to make a career in harness racing, with 31 cadets on the 2019 Roll Call, the same as the previous year.

It’s currently somewhat unusual to hear anyone in the harness racing game speaking about the RIU in positive terms, and with good reason. However, I’ve always believed in giving credit where it’s due.