### ODT Online Thu, 10 Oct 2013
Racing: ‘Sound’ result for Otago RC despite difficult circumstances
By Matt Smith
Otago Racing Club president Dean Lawrence has one request for this season – a little less rain, please. Lawrence, who was re-elected unopposed as president at the club’s annual meeting last night, rued the bad weather which plagued the first half of his maiden tenure as he presented his annual report to the committee at Wingatui last night. The loss of a race meeting due to bad weather at the start of last season got the club’s season off on the wrong foot and the bad luck continued with wet and cold conditions on Melbourne Cup day and Boxing Day, Lawrence said.
Read more
Excerpt, ODT 10.10.13 (page 20):
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Related Posts and Comments:
1.8.13 Politicians keeping DIA/SFO quiet on ORFU and TTCF #pokierorts
21.2.13 DIA, SFO investigation #pokierorts
For more, enter terms such as *pokies*, *pokierorts*, *dia* or *sfo* in the search box at right.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Congratulations What If. It appears that the exposure of the gaming ripoffs from the contributors to What If have not fallen on deaf ears. Racing clubs gaining 1/2 million from gambling grants now appear to be a thing of the past. Keep up the good work.
Hard to know what finally tipped the balance, politically (where are the prosecutions??) – professional rugby is yet to be diced with punitively.
Jock strap, if it were only a lot more obvious that the grand theft, fraud and other illegal activities carried out by those connected with the pokie trusts were being met by prosecutions and consequent punishment.
What you should know is that the DIA, the Minister, the Police and the Independent Police Complaints Authority have all been provided with ample evidence to prosecute. They have not. I have my own well-founded suspicions just why this evidence has been ignored and why compliance with the law is so heavily enforced for one or two sectors of society and not for others.
Maybe racing doesn’t have the deep-seated influence that professional rugby has, maybe there are other reasons, but the fact remains that millions of dollars of pokie money ended up in the hands of professional rugby and largely at the cost of those that could least afford it from the poorer parts of Auckland.
I watched a lecture recently which discussed the whole area of ethics in business and what happened to whistleblowers within an organisation that was guilty of unethical or illegal activities. In most cases the organisations dealt with the unethical or illegal activities by getting rid of the whistleblower. We have seen this attitude followed time and time again within this country.
As a result of what I know, I do not trust those in the compliance sector one inch. I certainly have no faith whatsoever in those that are entrusted to uphold the law.
Russell, you might’ve seen this week’s 3rd Degree (TV3) where some debate took place on the IPCA and its lack of independence etc.
Russell – “I do not trust those in the compliance sector one inch” – darn tootin’! Not even a moist bus ticket. Looks like corruption is *caught* like the common cold, not like a graffiti-sprayer.
Mentions tracked by What if? Dunedin stats today – see various comments these pages:
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time/page2
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time/page3
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time/page4
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time/page5
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time/page6
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07-16-2013, 08:41 AM #13
Scott Armpit
Join Date [racechat]: Aug 2011
Posts: 404
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time&p=258406&viewfull=1#post258406
Don’t be silly , Leggy is a gate attendant at his local track if he decides to strike he could bring NZ racing to its knees in a matter of minutes.
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12-29-2013, 05:24 PM #23
hamish
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Dunedin
Posts: 1,189
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time&p=270556&viewfull=1#post270556
Leggy has nice blog on Dunedin stadium issues and pokies, it seems nobody will listen to leggy, bar somebody who needs to use him so he can be a big time player in racing again.
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12-29-2013, 06:15 PM #34
curious1
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 2,887
http://www.racechat.co.nz/horse/showthread.php?44235-Strike-Time&s=17a806230945d4fbd0b5b1434a9f4778&p=270571&viewfull=1#post270571
Originally Posted by hamish
Boss man Admin would not want me revealing who you are.
Well since I don’t have or even know of a blog on Dunedin stadium and pokie issues there’s no fear of that so would you please point us all to the blog that you think is mine. If that reveals my identity, no problem. Most here know who I am anyway.
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Meanwhile, go to RaceCafe…
Mentions Operation Chestnut and more (to open the attachments you will need to register/subscribe as a reader at RaceCafe).
Thread: Some light reading – started by Sheriff, 27 Dec 2013
http://www.racecafe.co.nz/forums/index.php?/topic/29347-some-light-reading/
(2 pages)
### ODT Online Tue, 18 Mar 2014
Racing club applies to subdivide Wingatui land
By Debbie Porteous
Difficult economic times facing the racing industry have led the Otago Racing Club to apply to subdivide and sell some of its land on the Wingatui Racecourse site, its consultant says. The club has applied to the Dunedin City Council to rezone an area along the racecourse’s northern frontage on Gladstone Rd North. The rezoning, from rural to residential, would allow for the creation of 11 lots for housing. A 12th lot would contain the racecourse and facilities.
Read more
I’m sure with this one Syd will be egging on ORC. Subdivision, yay! Oh look, Allan Cubitt is the planner. That should seal it with DCC, whether it’s notified or not, “Our Allan” will get it through.
Was it not Allan Cubitt as consultant that managed to get all Wal’s consents done non-notified??? The consent that didn’t have the approval of all affected parties. Something that the RMA states must happen to be able to be non-notified.
Yes.
### ODT Online Thu, 28 Aug 2014
Planners oppose Wingatui housing
By Debbie Porteous
City planners have sided with residents of a semi-rural Dunedin suburb against development of a subdivision on the Wingatui racecourse site.
But the Otago Racing Club says the money the subdivision could bring in is vital to secure a future for the southern racing industry and the livelihoods of those involved in it. The proposal is to divide a strip of land along the Gladstone Rd North side of the racecourse site into 11 sections, requiring a rezoning of the land from rural to residential.
Read more
If the DCC planners oppose the Wingatui housing development on the race course site on this publicly notified resource consent. How is it then that only a few months back another DCC planner allowed a non-complying non-notified residential subdivision on the very same site ????
Were they allowed the first one non-notified to assist them in getting the notified one through ???
Horses for courses, DCC.
### ODT Online Sat, 30 Aug 2014
Objectors not swayed by racing club ‘threat’
By Debbie Porteous
The Otago Racing Club says if it does not get consent to subdivide for a row of houses along Gladstone Rd North at Wingatui, it could build a row of large, potentially brightly lit, noisy and smelly corrugated iron-clad horse barns there instead. “They wouldn’t be that attractive,” the racing club’s planner, Allan Cubitt, yesterday told a panel considering the consent. It was not saying it would, just that it could because that sort of thing was permitted in a rural zone, he said.
Read more
### radionz.co.nz Updated at 7:33 pm on 29 August 2014
Wingatui residents fear ‘McMansions’
By Ian Telfer – Otago Reporter
People living opposite Dunedin’s Wingatui racecourse say its subdivision will wreck their views with a row of “beige McMansions”. Residents lined up today at a resource consent hearing to criticise the Otago Racing Club’s plans to carve off 11 sections for housing. The club says it needs the money to turn itself into the South Island’s main horse training centre. Today’s hearing heard many arguments – but in the end they boiled down to this: What is a rural view worth?
Read more
Eeewww. I’m on their side. Who, apart from those who aspire to a McMansion of their own cheek by jowl with other McMansions each with its individual “style”, wouldn’t dread the thought of finding themselves in the midst of a McMansion encampment? Beige? They’d be lucky. I predict a swing to bold colours, Statements.
Dreadful way to end rural bliss. My heart goes out, truly.
If it happened at paddocks next door to me I’d buy me a drone.
Elizabeth, you don’t need to buy a drone. The Town Hall is full of them. Most hardly used. You would want a serious warrant of fitness test by a competent garage before touching though. Oh, and you would need to know it was ‘Kosher’, rumour has it that there has been some dodgy deals done in that building.
Calvin, I was thinking more upmarket drones like the US uses ‘offshore’…
I know, but the threat of ‘taking them out’ is a bit radical. Like equating the Racing Club with ISIS. Hold that thought! it might not be so silly after all. But you would have to wonder if the DIA would approve, that club gets a fair bit from the ‘pokie’ funds.
Â
The chart – see link below, enter ‘Otago Racing’ in the form – shows the the Otago Racing Club has had over $1.1 million in pokie grants from just one pokie trust (TTCF) since 2004 and there may well be others who have given the club grants. These records do not include the $500,000 grant that TTCF gave to the Taieri Pony Club for draining the racing club’s land back in 2010 [remember Syd Brown…] So how long do you think the money raised from any rural subdivision would last?
http://www.ttcfltd.org.nz/how-to-apply/application-status
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Search form results | TTCF grants to Otago Racing Club
[click to enlarge, then zoom using Ctrl +]
The hype about creating a “world class facility” is bullshit, the same sort of hype used for the stadium, and changes at the Cricket Oval and Logan Park (yawn). If the $1.5 million from pokies hasn’t improved their business what will the sale of 11 sections do. They’d probably need to apply for a pokie grant to build the tin stables threatened.
Â
ODT 12.9.14 (page 12)
![ODT 12.9.14 Letters to the editor Miller [reply] p12 (1)](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/odt-12-9-14-letters-to-the-editor-miller-reply-p12-1.jpg?w=500&h=639)
Sandy’s reply to my letter creates more questions than answers.
1. Why has Sandy replied and not the planner who granted the subdivision of the caretakers house. After all it was his decision to grant this consent, and it would have been a help to understand his reasoning for granting the consent. Is Sandy now part of the council’s planning team, and its spokesperson?
2. The granting of a non-notified, non-complying consent can only be granted if the effects are no more than minor. It should be noted that the zoning of the caretakers house still remains rural.
The district plan reveals that the minimum site size for a rural subdivision is 15 hectares. The granting of this consent without public notification sets a new standard for the site size in the rural area. It is approximately 150 times SMALLER than the District Plan allows.
3. Sandy: “There is arguably a large planning difference between allowing this long-established dwelling to have its own independent property.” That begs the question. If there is arguably a large planning difference. Then why was this consent for the caretakers house not notified?
4. I know for a fact that other community board members have questioned why they have not been trained to sit on hearings in the Mosgiel area. The reason could be that it is a good money spinner for the other two.
Brian, I found it VERY STRANGE that a non-Planning member of staff (no formal accreditation or nationally recognised competencies in Resource Management planning) replied to your letter to the editor. It just won’t do.
Reply should have come from Alan Worthington (Resource Consents Manager) at City Planning – not the General Manager Corporate Services, which seems to suggest some tail covering and distancing was thought necessary. Why?
With the best will in the world, this requires a formal LGOIMA request to clear things up.
Besides, isn’t Martin Dillon a property investor/developer, how can he act as a planning commissioner making determinations on his peers?
Interesting article on the proposed subdivision of the Wingatui racecourse in the ODT today.
Refers to one of Dunedin’s top lawyers representing the racecourse.
Mr Phil Page responding to concerns about the impact of the subdivision on the Wingatui Hall. Mr Page said in future, the community could make use of the racecourse’s facilities, allowing the council to sell the old hall.
Imagine having Mr Page representing you for the enormous fee that he must charge, and get a statement like that from him.
Has he done his homework on this one? It appears not. As the old hall that he refers to is not owned by the council.
Do people actually pay for this sort of representation?
Jock Strap, our dear Mr Page is quite a trick, isn’t he.
Planner unmoved by last-minute changes
The fate of a proposed Gladstone Rd North subdivision on the edge of the Wingatui Racecourse now rests with a Dunedin City Council hearings committee.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/318210/planner-unmoved-last-minute-changes
Page can’t get anything right. At point 21 of his rebuttal to submitters he speaks of ‘former Wingatui trainer Paul Richards’……….. and “the Club can confirm that Mr Richards has left Wingatui for Brierley Park Auckland”. Funny that is; I got a big wave from him at his Puddle Alley stables during the week and his barn seemed to be just dripping with horses. Not like a guy who’s migrated to Auckland to be in two places at once. Worse still though, I’m not invited. I’m aware of a lot of folk invited to a ‘piss-up’ at the Richards’ Wingatui residence later in the summer, so there’s going to be a lot of pissed-off people rocking up to this party only to find (according to Phil Page) nobody home. But one thing is clear, Phil Page cannot be one of those invited or he would have known that Richards was not in Auckland. Mr Richards – you are an absolute judge of character for not inviting that shiny arsed rogue. You clearly have your standards. Well done!!
If proper, worth noting that to the Hearing Committee chair, in writing. Stooping to the desperate to earn private fees for a successful resource consent application never ends well.
You may want to know Paul Richards has left Wingatui Racecourse as a trainer…and this summer ‘piss up’ you talk of was his leaving party.
He left just before Melbourne Cup Day…you may want to get information correct before you have a big rant about something you obviously know nothing about.
This Annoyed cowboy has a literacy problem. Cinamod wrote (3 Oct 2014) contesting a written statement Phil Page (counsel for ORC) made that Paul Richards had already left for Auckland. This Annoyed nincompoop argues that Cinamod should get his information correct by arguing that Richards did not leave until just before Melbourne Cup day, and in doing so fortifies Cinamod’s criticism of Page by confirming Cinamod’s claim that on 4 Oct Richards was still at Wingatui. So what kind of drugs is this ‘Annoyed’ contributer on. I am at the track ‘tie-ups’ every morning and know precisely what’s going on. And I can confirm that what Cinamodjunior posted about Paul Richards on 4 Oct is 100% correct. I attended the ‘piss-up’ at Paul Richards’ home at 47 Wingatui Road on the night of 18 Oct – which represented his and Leanne’s ‘farewell party’. Incidentally, Cinamod was there too. My message to this Annoyed cave dweller is that it is better to remain silent and be thought to be ignorant, than to speak; thereby removing all doubt.
What a joke this guy has turned into. With the threat if they do not get their own way with this one, that they have another development up their sleeve. In the form of a noisy and a brightly-lit stables.
They have recently developed new stables at the north east end of the course. That are neither noisy or brightly-lit, because there is no-one to use them.
What about the fact that Mosgiel already has had a rezoning for about another 500 residential sections inside the residential zone. Mosgiel does not need to take more rural land for residential purposes. After all, Mosgiel has the reputation of being the retirement village for Otago, and most of them are temporary citizens.
If some in the racing industry stopped their rooting around, and got on with the job of running the industry properly. They might not have to sell their assets to stay in business.
Sell their assets? Whatever happened to their banker, the DIA and its “pokies fund”? Or is that only for the “race stakes”? Once corrupted, always corrupted, I say.
It would appear that if you are big enough in the legal world in Dunedin. You can say what you like at these hearings.
In the submissions for reply of counsel for the Otago Racing Club, it is stated at one point that a Mr David Gard is a recent purchaser of the property from Maurice Prendergast.
For the record, Maurice Prendergast has never owned property in the Wingatui area.
Must be “another” Maurice Prendergast, probably the low-profile local celebrity chef-playwright-breakdancer.
It’s not as if anyone would tell porkies, not in good old honest-as-the-day-is-long Dunedin. Wingatui Flyer, how can you suggest such a thing!
Hype. According to google Maurice Prendergast is a director on the board of Pumpkin Patch. Could this be the same Maurice Prendergast that sold the house in Wingatui? Pumpkin Patch has a rural feel about it and our Maurice certainly has that rural look. What do you say Hype ?
Mr Flyer, you’re onto it. Look at the background of this photo: https://www.pumpkinpatch.biz/images/Maurice_Prendergast.jpg
Could anything be more iconically Wingatui?
The Racing Club’s subdivision consent application has been declined
Oh dear, poor Mr Page!
And how on earth will ORC get by now ???
15 working days to appeal.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/321964/wingatui-subdivision-rejected-council
Otago Racing Club president Dean Lawrence said:
“The club had proposed it could build a row of large, potentially brightly lit, noisy and smelly corrugated iron-clad horse barns instead of the subdivision and that proposal remained on the table but no decisions had been made.”
How to win friends.
With those sort of comments, they leave themselves wide open to complaints about some of the activities that are seen to be taken place on site, that may not be a permitted activity in the rural zone. They may have been better to have bitten their tongue, as it may cost them very dearly in the future. It just shows what nasty little creatures they can be.
I see the Wingatui meat heads are all pissed off because the English rugby league boys said it like it was. “I have never seen so many drunk people in my life.”
The organizers of the race meeting should hang their heads in shame, if this is the best they can do.
7.11.14 ODT England league team stunned by drunk Dunedin antics
8.11.14 ODT Race club fires back after ‘drunk Dunedin’ report
Racing Club appealing council decision.
Uh-oh.
Otago Racing Club Inc v Dunedin City Council – Notice of Appeal 18 Nov 2014 (PDF, 572 KB)
ODT Online 25.11.14
(tagged to the bottom of another story about an 82-lot subdivision at 67 and 67A Gladstone Road North by Wanaka-based Minaret Resources)
The Otago Racing Club is to appeal the council’s refusal to grant subdivision and land-use consent for an 11-lot subdivision on land between the Wingatui Racecourse and Gladstone Rd North. Lawyers acting for the club said the council had erred in that the application met the necessary planning criteria to be granted. Lawyer Phil Page said that while the land might have rural zoning, it was not a true rural zone given its use and history. He also said the committee was incorrect when it determined the area’s environment and for not taking into account the future environment.
Read more
Oh FFS!
I see they spent about $63k on the resource consent. Lost that, now are appealing the decision. Maybe another $80k. If I was a betting man, I would only back the appeal for a place. They will probably only get second again.
NEWS FLASH: Council are considering selling out on the Wingatui residents, and preparing to give the racing club consent to subdivide for housing.
I intercepted a message at 3.47am this morning as I was checking my traps at Middlemarch. Council planners are working behind the scenes to accommodate the racing club’s subdivision after it was turned down at the consent hearing. This will be a clear message to developers if this goes through, that the Taieri is now wide open for the picking for residential development.
DCC must think the integrity of the community owned Dunedin City District Plan is not worth enough against the value of commercial interests that lobby on behalf of Otago Racing Club for suburban sprawl in the rural zone. City Planning lacks seniority and spine but then so does the new general manager ?
Sounds like Mr Page has made headway through expert caucusing ? Thanks Night Rider.
Tell Wingatui Flyer, I hope he’s well placed, we need more information as to the processes that got the parties to this point.
That is not the only news on what is happening out Wingatui way Night Rider. The chain saws have been at work at the site you mentioned, cutting out trees in anticipation of getting the nod from the planners.
The reality is that the tree felling that is occurring has also been taking place along Puddle Alley and Gladstone Road at the request of Delta.
The Otago Racing Club have even decided to leave a select few trees at the request of some concerned neighbours. Furthermore I have been informed from ORC sources that for every tree felled they intend to plant three more on the property.
As Brian Miller raised earlier, I hope the non-notified subdivision for the ORC caretaker’s house has not landed the council in a deep hole, ie by setting a precedent —leading to DCC’s capitulation on the larger subdivision now at appeal.
I also wonder about the ‘self-imposed’ limit(s) or not of DCC’s legal fighting fund, per application and per appeal. Such things are political; interesting to know how the Council checklist goes for determining (legal) spending priorities.
Interesting that both the Mosgiel Pool and the racecourse subdivision appear to be the main talking points on the Taieri at the moment. Could there possibly be a link ?
In my stroll around Wingatui, a rather slick thoroughbred poked his nose over the fence for a chat. He regularly uses the course for workouts of a mile or two, and had overheard some stable talk from a pretty filly friend of his. Deals maybe being done he told me. Could be that the Council will let the subdivision go ahead, as long as the boys from the course promise not to come back for further subdivision plans at a later date. Stable talk is that the deal sounds good. Keep it quiet. Apparently there is a developer sitting in the wings, just waiting for this precedent setting decision to get the nod.
That sounds about right. Why would DCC politicians (with City Planning) undermine tbe district plan and the spatial plan to keep the Otago Racing Club in pocket now that the illegal pokie funds it formerly profited from aren’t on tap so much. Why allow subdivision of any kind out there, including for (historical) the caretaker’s house with which DCC has likely set a precedent. I hope opposing submitters – if they have registered with Environment Court as interested parties to the appeal (s274 RMA) – are AWAKE and ready to fight.
Make sense of this if you can.
1. The planning dept of the DCC give the go ahead for a non-notified non-complying consent for the racecourse to subdivide the caretaker’s house, that is over 100 times smaller than the District Plan allows.
2. The racecourse comes back with a bigger plan to subdivide more land for residential development. This goes before a notified public hearing, that turns the application down flat.
3. The racecourse appeals the public hearing’s decision.
4. Now the planning dept from point 1. enter into negotiations / mediation with the racecourse, and offer them what they wanted in the first place, with a few conditions.
MY POINT: What was the point of holding number 2. that turned down the application for further residential development, and then handing the appeal process back to those that caved in and allowed a non-notified non-complying on number 1.
It would appear that the whole issue has been nothing other than a circus. With number 2. costing somebody a heap of money and time (including the submitters), for it to then go back to those who gave number 1. to reverse what the notified public hearing process of number 2. had turned down.
Can some one explain to me how this can happen when we have a District Plan. The “people’s document” that is supposed to govern how the City operates. Is it a circus or the wild west, or an institution that is run by the in-mates ? Take your pick. The right answer gets a packet of black jelly beans.
Jock Strap, it’s real worry. Somebody in somebody’s pocket, sounds.
Wild west to answer that question.
Please read my above entry 21/02/2015 again, and you will see the shambles that this council gets itself into when it allows non-notified applications on non-complying activities by people who are employed and paid by the ratepayers to protect the city by the only rule book that they have. The District Plan, that is based on the RMA, and totally ignore it.
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{Link added. -Eds}
For some ten years it has been an institution run by the inmates, ignoring the wishes and even demands in the case of the stadium.
Total reform is needed, not just sloughing a few rabbits as has occurred recently.
Site Admin
“Cars” – this comment automatically went to SPAM (due to your name, you might want to vary the spelling or choose a new name?) – I’ve just discovered it and two other comments by you meant for other threads. These have been restored: re Figaro and Greenie DCC.
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Ditto Hype – one of your comments went to SPAM, re new Chair of DVML. Restored.
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If your post goes missing after submission please contact the site by comment or email and we will check the SPAM filter – the filter can carry up to 400 or more SPAMS per day so it’s entirely possible we will miss your lost comments in the forest of SPAM pages…. We will also take care to check the filter more regularly. We’re unlikely to delete word filters to accommodate any contributors we know.
Sorry Elizabeth. You only get third prize. A licorice shoe lace.
Rigged !!
The Truth appears to be showing as to why the racing club are appealing to be able to subdivide for more residential development.
The area has just experienced its driest year since European settlement, and the races have had to be abandoned twice because of wet slippery conditions. If conditions are that bad in a dry year for racing, just imagine what it will be like as a residential development under normal weather conditions. Free gumboots when you purchase a residential section ?
Wonder where DCC is now on the appeal ?
While strolling around Wingatui this morning, my thoroughbred friend poked his nose over the fence. He tells me that the council has caved in on this one, and are going to allow residential development, but quite different from the original application.
Council has a major problem on their hands with this one. They are supposed to be defending the hearings committee decision that turned the application down.
That should mean a new publicly notified application !!!!
They could go the same way as the Caretakers house, and go non-notified.
In which case DCC will be dicing with death !!!!
Unless it has struck a deal – with all original submitters/affected parties – that we don’t know about yet.
If no deal has been struck I wonder when “all original submitters/affected parties” will find out what’s going on.
If there has been agreed change to the original application then there may be new affected parties. How is one to know if any change to the original application will affect new parties, if it is not publicly notified ?
Exactly!
Mosgiel Taieri Community Board member requested an update on the Wingatui racecourse appeal at board meeting. Council rep and board chair close down any discussion.
Site Admin.
If the council rep (Cr Wilson?) and the board chair (Mr Feather) want to know how important this is, the proposed subdivision by Otago Racing Club at Wingatui on appeal, as City Planning issues go – then let me tell readers that this post is running neck and neck with the ‘Farry’s fubar / Ivy League’ one right behind the Home page today at What if?
And this is a very good day for view numbers – lift-off after midday!!!
We are ALL watching DCC and City Planning.
{Update: Yesterday, 10 March, in the 24-hour period up to midnight you visited 181 Individual Posts (pages) at this website. -Eds}
Do you notice an increase in view numbers when ODT has no-comments-allowed stories?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the absence of comments sends an alert to on the ball readers, who then try to find out what’s the rest of the story that the ODT doesn’t want mentioned.
Absolutely, we get great Stats – it’s like bread and butter.
My thorough bred friend stopped me this morning at the 2 furlong peg to tell me that during mediation, and as part of the agreement certain trees were to be left standing. My thorough bred friend tells me, that even before the deal was signed, the trees have got the chop. My thorough bred friend reckons that someone is giving someone the two fingered salute.
Incredible. Does that mean more mediation, or straight to Environment Court?
After reading about the cancellation of another race meeting at Wingatui. This is number 3. They may be better to develop the whole of the racecourse for residential use, as they seem incapable of keeping the track up to racing standards, even when it has not been raining for weeks.
Where does the buck stop at Wingatui. Someone must be responsible for the preparation of the track. I see that they are now trying to blame the horses shoes for the problems, but don’t these horses use the same shoes on other tracks. How many other tracks have had 3 cancellations for the same reason as Wingatui ?
The Wingatui / Otago Racing Club purse, after 3 cancellations, has to be suffering a bit of strife and emptiness ? Oh wait. The track conditions mean there’s already LOTS of ‘poverty'(?) preceding the cancellations….
REALLY need to subdivide !! (read short term gains ONLY)
Met up with my thorough bred friend again the other day at the 1600 metre peg. He tells me that the club has spent up big time installing a new plastic running rail to bring the track up to the highest standard. My thorough bred friend couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, when they are to hold the next Wingatui meeting up at Oamaru. He reckons that they would have been better to have spent the money employing someone who knew how to prepare the track for racing rather than for cancellations. I said to my friend, the one good thing that can come out of this is that if they don’t race at Wingatui, and they have no accidents at Wingatui, then the new plastic rail will be seen to be achieving its purpose.
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{Link: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/339081/railing-upgraded -Eds}
Wed, 3 Aug 2016
Land sale to pay for racing training centre
Work on a subdivision at Wingatui has begun in earnest with a line of macrocarpa trees bordering the Mosgiel Pony Club being cut down. The Otago Racing Club was granted resource consent for an 11-section subdivision after appealing to the Environment Court in 2014, after the consent was declined by the Dunedin City Council.
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Dear Sydney Brown.
Otago Racing Club are throwing all their toys out of the cot, since being turned down for rates relief. They have notified the council they are removing the public toilets as they cannot justify the cleaning costs, now that they don’t get rates relief.
LOL good for them.