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By Nowornever · Posted
From Barry Lichter Auckland Trotting Club president Jamie McKinnon today assured trainers that they would not be left without a training track if members voted tonight to sell Franklin Park. And while he would not reveal details ahead of the special annual general meeting, McKinnon told Pukekohe trainers the club was close to signing a deal on a new site which it planned to lease and develop at a cost of $20 million. McKinnon revealed the buyer of Franklin Park as Oyster Capital, a New Zealand company whose director Cam Wilson was a specialist in developing large properties. Oyster Capital still had four months to complete its due diligence on the property which would go unconditional at the end of October or early November so until then there was still a risk it might not go ahead, he said. The club would not be “dead in the water” however if Oyster Capital decided not to proceed as it had another party who was interested in buying part of the property. But if all went to plan, Oyster Capital would then pay a deposit and there would be two further payments after that, allowing trainers the use of the tracks until October 1, 2026. “That’s not negotiable but depending on where they're at with their development and consent process - they need to go for a boundary realignment - we could negotiate to stay longer if need be. But we don't think we're going to need any longer.” McKinnon did not confirm the purchase price - believed to be $70 million - but he said the club had managed to negotiate a better deal than originally offered by Oyster Capital. “We got it up to something respectable that the club's happy with and, more importantly, the banks happy with it as the bank's calling a lot of shots over the club these days.” McKinnon said the deal would leave the club short of being able to pay off its bank debt, given it was not getting the $100 million from its first deal, which fell over. “The club is going to put some of its commercial properties on the market to help fund the shortfall with the bank and we're hoping there'll be a surplus from those.” The club also hoped to get money from various grants bodies, with the help of Harness Racing New Zealand CEO Brad Steele. Steele addressed the often fiery meeting himself, stating that while HRNZ itself was not giving the ATC any money, he knew of six funds the club could access. He had already lodged an application with the Government’s $1.3 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund, but was still waiting to hear if it was eligible. Thoroughbred racing had previously accessed the fund for $100 million. Steele said he was “pretty certain” the ATC would be able to tap into some of the $100 million Entain had paid to the TAB on the passing of legislation for ge-blocking. “Some of that is already ring-fenced for sport, but there's still a large amount of money left. I'm encouraging the TAB to allow some of those funds to be applied to infrastructure needs for harness racing. They haven't said no and they haven't said yes.” Steele said that as a Queenslander he had no bias and his job was to ensure harness racing flourished in both islands, but particuarly in the North Island with its population base. “I'm all-in, in terms of supporting the North Island. Yes, we do cop a bit of stick from Canterbury in terms of the money that we're investing. But it's worth it and it's the right thing to do. We need to get the North Island pumping.” Steele said he believed the country needed three training centres and priority number one was the North Island. Despite repeated pleas from trainers on how far they would have to travel to the new training centre, McKinnon would not reveal its location, except to say it was within half an hour of the present track. “We're signing a memorandum of understanding with them, probably next week, and then we’ll go through the finer details to nail down exactly what we're going to do and how it's going to work.” The intention was to lease the land and invest $20 million to build a track and 20 barns, similar to Menangle outside Sydney. McKinnon said the entire complex could be set up quite quickly with a track put down next summer. Stonewall Stud owner Steve Stockman had come up with the design with factory-built barns, each with a walking machine. Asked about the wisdom of investing $20 million on land it did not own, McKinnon said there would be a renewable 35-year lease. Lincoln Farms’ boss John Street said he was sworn to secrecy over the location of the new training centre but assured trainers they would be “thrilled with it”. McKinnon rebuffed suggestions the club should be selling Alexandra Park instead of Franklin Park, revealing that, while land around the course could be sold and developed, the track itself was a nationally protected venue. Under the Auckland Unitary Plan it was a special zone. McKinnon said while Auckland Thoroughbred Racing had recently voted to sell the galloping track opposite Franklin Park, the ATC did not have the money to buy it. But he was aware of the need to cause as little disruption as possible to the Pukekohe locals, knowing families had invested in housing and schooling. -
By Special Agent · Posted
Looking at Sunday's card at Te Aroha you'd think there had never been a problem around jumping fields. -
isn't mr steele in auckland tonight trying to sell to aucklanders the best way to spend ten's of millions of hrnz funds on auckland. i mean,he would be loving it up there. the saviour has arrived. this could be his finest hour. he would ride in on his white horse called moneybags,have money bags stomp his feet a few times to get everyones attention. Then he would dismount,start unsaddling money bags by removing large sacks with writing on them like,forbury money,southland money,grass roots canterbury prizemoney.He would then pick them up,it would be a struggle as the bag with forbury money on it is rather heavy. then he would throw them on the table where mr mckinnon sits and mr mckinnon would flash a cheeky grin and stand up and address the crowd and say,i told you this restructuring was going to be a piece of cake. at that point brad,we know him well enough to call him by his first name,would spot tabman in the crowd. They would exchange a bit of banter,like your the man tabmanforever,no your the man brad,no your the man tabman,no your the man brad. after about 5 minutes of that only jamie,yes we know mr mckinnon well enough to be on first name tems as well,will be the only one awake and he will be observed doing starfish motions on the money,(and n,o no sexual pun intended there). so brad will call out to money bags and have him stomp his feet and all the members will awake and mutter yes,just as they are asked to vote, as if they have been dreaming a nightmare that all of a sudden awoken to a happy ending. then brad will whistle,money bags will come over,brad will jump on and let out a cry of,my work is done here, then a few hi ho money bags and away. he will gallop back out the door,do a couple of laps of the field while the blues traini and yell out to them,this is crusaders country now you bunch of losers, then gallop off into the distance. who was that masked man the blues players will say, wthwere will be whispers of ,was that rob penny. but then jamie will come out of the meeting room say and yell,not ron penny boys ,that was brad steele. remember this day,you will tell your granchildren about it. -
Its interesting thar your % demograpics differ a bit from that of the average facebook user. You clearly have a significant, across the board, greater % of men,whereas they say on facebook its about a 53% women to 47 % men in nz.Apparently mums check facebook the most so that may skew the figures of the female users a wee bit. In the younger demographics in nz, they are seeing significant increases in the numbers of under 35 year olds using the likes of tik tok. Overall 37% of new zealanders use tik tok. But those younger users aren't your base anyway.But getting exposure on there is relevant going forward for hrnz. anyways,its also noticeable your overall %'s are more significant in the likes of the over 45 age group compared to facebook overall and i guess that would flow on into the over 55 age groups as well. And that makes sense given that is a base of nz harness followers. so given the % of over 55's using facebook in nz drops significantly, compared with other age groups. And given you've shown above your content is viewed in greater numbers by those in those older age groups. Then it just makes sense if you can get exposure to the older demographic through the HRNZ website then you would significantly grow your audience. the whole point of exposure on these things is positive ,relateable exposure. And thats what yours is. Its a no brainer that hrnz should be using your content to attract not only people interested in harness racing,but the casual observer . i guess thats why they don't do it. It makes too much sense.
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Auckland is haemorrhaging millions of dollars in losses each year snd it just is not going to improve in the future going by the current HRNZ policies! What would give us some confidence that HRNZ knows what it is doing and we are talking BS, is if Brad Steele would come on to BOAY and explain to us mere mortals that everything is under control! He won’t because he knows that things are dire and he can not back up with fact that things are rosey as he stated on Trackside a few weeks ago! Doesnt have to be Brad, can be anyone that can advise us all of how great things are!
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