Riccarton Cup Week Carnival

[craigos1]

What a wonderful week it was............too think during the early stages of Lockdown they were going to take the Guineas races off Riccarton.

Personal highlights for me were on the 2nd day Prince Oz winning and then in the very next race Queen Jetson also winning for reasons that both were documented about.

Well done CJC.

Below is a e-mail I received via Tim Mills (General Manager)

 

Dear Owner/Trainer

The 2020 renewal of the New Zealand Cup Meeting has been ‘done and dusted’, a huge fortnight of activity preparing, running and cleaning up Riccarton Park racecourse is now behind us.

In spite of some trepidation about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued unavailability of the Grand National Stand the three-day carnival was once again a huge success and reflected the increased and continued popularity of this iconic three-day racemeeting.

• Total New Zealand betting comprising, off-course, on-course and fixed odds totalled $13,358,755 an increase of $1,999,092 on 2019 which in turn was up by over $1,015,000 2018.
• On top of that Australian betting totalled $4,773,303.
• Thirty-five races were held, three more than the 32 races of last year, which was one more than 2018.
• Total starters numbered 492. This is 86 more than 2019, which in turn was an increase of 29 on the year before.
• The average fields size over the three days was 14.01 against 12.7 in 2019.  This compares exceptionally well against the current national average of 12.11 and last year's national average of 10.65.
• Attendance over the three days was highlighted by the sell-out NZ Cup Day of 15,000 with ticket sales being closed on the Thursday afternoon prior to Cup Day. At its peak on ‘Cup Day’ 3,000 people were scanned in during a 15 minute period.
• Total food and beverage sales exceeded last year.
• Al Basti Equiworld Dubai continued their sponsorship support of the NZ 2000 Guineas and Barneswood Farm joined the Club as sponsorship partner of the NZ 1000 Guineas.
• Iconic local business Christchurch Casino celebrated its 26th year with the continued sponsorship of the historic New Zealand Cup.
• Importantly for any event the size of NZ Cup Day the police were also happy.  Superintendent Lane Todd described the day as “well-organised and well-managed”.
• And finally, what it’s all about, so many outstanding equine sporting performances on the track and emotional scenes post-race in the birdcage.

All the above are indicators of a most successful carnival.

The Canterbury Jockey Club wishes to sincerely thank you for your involvement and contribution to this wonderful week of racing.  Your support is instrumental in the New Zealand Cup Meeting having the success and profile that it does.

We do acknowledge that the unavailability of the Grand National Stand, still a hang-over from the earthquakes, causes us some logistical challenges in accommodating racegoers on ‘Cup Day’ and we thank you all for your patience whilst we deal with this ongoing matter.

A special thanks also to the trainers and strappers for their patience and co-operation in the Raceday Tie-ups when acceptances outnumbered the number of stalls.

All the very best for the rest of the 2020/21 season and the Christmas and New Year holiday season.

Kind regards,

Tim Mills
Chief Executive
Riccarton Park | Canterbury Jockey Club

[Hesi]

Well up here in the city where no one can afford to buy a house, we used to have a carnival that so many racing and ordinary folk looked forward to.  Packed course, including the infield, a real carnival atmosphere.

Now it is pretty much a non-event

[Hesi]

Pete concurs with this, as he told me, but Boxing Day out at Ellerslie on the infield with all the Xmas leftovers and a very moderate amount of alcohol, used to be the racing day of the year that you looked forward to the most, followed for me, by Bayer Classic day.

I realise big oncourse attendance is not necessarily just the answer to racing's woes, but it has many flow on effects, that I don't think are ever taken into account by those that run racing

[pete]

1 hour ago, Hesi said:

Pete concurs with this, as he told me, but Boxing Day out at Ellerslie on the infield with all the Xmas leftovers and a very moderate amount of alcohol, used to be the racing day of the year that you looked forward to the most, followed for me, by Bayer Classic day.

I realise big oncourse attendance is not necessarily just the answer to racing's woes, but it has many flow on effects, that I don't think are ever taken into account by those that run racing

Used to be a great day and so did Jan 1 as well.

Not sure I'd use the term very moderate amount of alcohol though. We often got there at 8.30 am, cracked open a can and fired up the barbie for breakfast.

Happy days.

[Turny]

ARC isolated themselves from the public and moving the Derby and Auckland Cup Day was icing on the cake 

When I lived in Auckland those 2 days were highlights of the yearly calendar

They goosed it

[Hesi]

Chris Weaver

Now chairman of NZTM. NZTM is the company responsible for the marketing of the NZ thoroughbred to the world.

He fucked up Ellerslie, and I guess now you could say he is fucking up NZ racing, by seeing how many can get sold off shore

[mardigras]

Sadly the culture around racing in NZ is such that to survive, we really needed to maintain interest in our own backyard. The treatment of carnivals and a less than positive view of racing generally, alongside the promotion of racing that is likely at a level beyond our own, has brought about the dilution of NZ racing interest. Even as the overall interest is maintained, there has been a major shift away from our racing to what is offered elsewhere. We are a small country with limited interested population. To get away with introducing such a massive amount of off-shore racing - it needed to be done in a way that still highlighted out point of difference and that point of difference needed to be a positive. That never happened.

You need the carnivals, but you need more than the carnivals. You need interest and that interest needs to be in NZ racing. Nothing is done in that regard and it's difficult for NZ racing to compete with other racing. Hence the dilution.

In places like Aus and the UK, going to the races is still in their cultures. And they still have an atmosphere of people wanting to be there (even with low stakes in much of the UK). Here, there is limited atmosphere at a basic meeting. Even without attendance, you still need interest. We've pretty well lost that.

And sure, Ellerslie at Christmas was always great - that alone is just one factor among many.

[Hesi]

Getting people on course, has so may flow on effects, the word is spread about what a great day, a day at the races can be, so more people get interested in wagering, or involved in horse ownership.

There is also the impact that seeing a racecourse full of people has, on people who are not there, like Boxing Day infield Ellerslie, was the place to be in Auckland, even worth putting the holiday departure off a day to accommodate.  Now just a big wank for the glitterati.

Getting people back on course, should be the number one priority for NZTR, but how can they, they do not even have an allocated marketing and promotion budget, which should become the number one priority.  How can you expect to tell people about your product and how great it is, unless you spend up large on the various multi media forms, including now of course, social media(even the politicians clicked onto that one).

Everyone else does, it is Marketing 101

NZTR, have branded themselves Love Racing, what a big ego wank, unless you are going to use that branding to promote racing, there is absolutely no point.  So we end up with each club doing there own promotion, and therefore the racing brand is diluted.  So going back to what I have said, the number one priority for NZTR is promoting NZ racing, not just to racing people(as they have done with Xmas at the Races), but the general populace.