Oamaru a vital link in the pipeline

Retaining its track as a harness racing venue is a major challenge for the Oamaru Harness Racing Club at present but one they’re willing to put up a fight for it.

The recently released Project Stamina report which looked at the rationalisation of racing in both harness and thoroughbred codes across New Zealand, is recommending that the Oamaru track as a harness racing venue be closed.

“It was a bit of a shock because we’d been through the Sapere Review and we were clear of that. We’ve had a lot of tracks around us like Waikouaiti, Forbury and Waimate shut. We’ve had the rationalisation in our area and we didn’t expect to be rationalised any further,” stated Oamaru HRC President Donald Kininmont.

Representatives from the Oamaru Harness Racing Club, Trustees of the Oamaru Racecourse Reserve, Waikouaiti Trotting Club, Kurow HRC, HRNZ, Otago Racing Club, Oamaru Jockey Club and consultancy firm RCP attended a meeting at the Oamaru track last Thursday to discuss the rationale behind the proposal.

“One thing they did say repeatedly was that it’s only a recommendation at the moment,” Kininmont said.

Oamaru Racecourse Reserve Trustee Dave Heffernan also attended the meeting.

“When you look at the Stamina Report for Oamaru it says thoroughbreds stay and harness exits, but One Equine said both exit. So in a way thoroughbreds have the green light from the report. It was very good that Murray Acklin (from Otago Racing Club) spoke about Wingatui’s position,” he said.

The Otago Racing Club wants to retain Oamaru as a backup galloping venue which could be used in the winter months.

“The Oamaru Jockey Club had announced on their last race day that that was curtains for them. I think that’s a wee bit premature because they’re in discussions with Otago and that’s a good fit. I think that’ll be a given. That will happen,” Heffernan said.

From a harness racing perspective one of the main points of contention was over the number of horses trained at the Oamaru course.

Heffernan said RCP was surprised when the number of horses trained by local trainer Matty Williamson on the Oamaru track was mentioned.

“One of the metrics is horse population and we obviously stated a very strong case. Matty normally has around forty horses in training on the course. He’s also got young and turned out stock coming in. On top of that it’s taken him ten years to build his ownership model,” Heffernan said.

“The RCP guys were a bit surprised with the numbers we gave them and they were going back to have a look at them,” Kininmont added.

The North Otago group has thirty days to gather their data and formulate their business case.

“I think that’s feasible because we’re pretty fired up about it. If we had to, we’d have it to them in thirty hours. I think it’s a pretty good timeframe to keep the process moving. When we send our business case back to them we’ll be putting very accurate numbers of harness horses that are trained in North Otago. All our horses are registered at HRNZ against our names so it shouldn’t have been that hard to provide that metric to RCP. We’ll flesh that out ourselves because we just need accuracy around that number.”

Oamaru is a very important supplier of horses to the Southern region.

“Quite often they’re (Phil, Matty and Brad Williamson) taking fifteen or sixteen horses down there between the three of them and then there’s Amber Hoffman,” Kininmont said.

“We are the northern most tentacle of Southern Harness,” Heffernan added.

Heffernan says if Oamaru is closed as a harness venue it is highly likely that Phil, Matty and Brad will walk away from the sport.

“I also explained from a Trustee point of view that the Oamaru track is a crown reserve. I said you have nothing to gain by closing Oamaru and everything to lose. That’s when Phil and Bev (Williamson) made it very clear that themselves and Matty won’t continue. He may look at just professional driving, but at the same time look at going out and getting a job. Brad is seriously eyeballing Australia. A place like Shepparton welcomes young trainers. You’ve got to be careful with his. They talk about feeding the pipeline and as Phil said, everything he’s seeing is closing or turning off the pipeline.”

The Williamsons are also a key supplier of horses to the strategically important Central Otago Summer Holiday circuit.

“Those holiday clubs (Omakau, Roxburgh and Wyndham at Cromwell) are quite worried about how they’re going to get horses. I don’t think the public appreciates how important the horse numbers here are to topping up Southand and Central Otago and to a lesser extent up north,” Kininmont said.

In 2023 Phil, Matty and Brad Williamson provided 19 of the 104 starters at the Omakau meeting. Take those numbers away and you’re looking at a significant impact on one of summers biggest showcase meetings.

Not only could it reduce field sizes particularly in the trotting events, it could also put races in danger of not being run.

Similar numbers and scenarios expose the risk to Omakau in 2024 with the Williamsons having provided eighteen horses out of a 100 and in 2025 sixteen out of 109.

As Phil pointed out, his horses carry a lot of the punter’s money and many of Matty and Brad’s horses have large ownership groups of up to 100 in some cases, which generally translate to betting interest.

One of the metrics used in RCP’s report was the number of locally trained horses that race on their home track.

“They said that seventy to eighty percent of the horses that race at Oamaru come from Canterbury. We agreed and said that’s been happening for one hundred years. I said that if that’s your metric you would close down Kaikoura, Blenheim, Nelson, Westport and Reefton. If you look at Westport 99.9% of the horses come from over the Alps. I think it’s a very poor metric,” said Heffernan.

Kininmont says if Oamaru was to close and the Williamsons were to exit the game it’s highly unlikely that the ownership numbers that Matty and his wife Charlotte have built up would stay in the sport.

“The question is, we’ve got horses trained here and a lot of owners here and are they going to follow their horses up to Canterbury?”

The Oamaru HRC is financially in a strong position and the committee has positive projects lined up once the position becomes clear.

“Everything for the last two or three years has been put on hold because of one thing or another. One of our wishes is to build one, perhaps two barns. We want to carry on racing in Oamaru. We’ve got three really good Clubs racing here, plus the galloping guys,” Kininmont said.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink