Levin Racing Club is considering ceding outright ownership of possibly the biggest plot of bare land left in town.
The LRC committee has called a Special General Meeting of members to decide whether to transfer ownership of its entire land holdings to RACE Inc, a corporate amalgamation of Manawatū, Marton,Feilding, Rangitikei and Wellington Racing Clubs.
Levin Racing Club is asset-rich, owning freehold title to more than 120 acres of prime land on Mako Mako Road where racehorses are trained. It also has $1 million in cash reserves.
Club members are being asked to vote whether or not to join RACE and transfer all land assets to RACE Inc.
A condition of joining RACE would see the racecourse leased back to LRC as a training hub, however its viability would be under periodic review.
LRC president Bruce McCarrison said the club was under pressure to amalgamate as the code's governing body New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) pushes a centralisation model.
Levin Track Trust Chairman Bruce McCarrison.
He said the motivation for pursuing the relationship with RACE came from discussions with NZTR more than a year ago that the club could face the possibility of an enforced sale.
"NZTR has spoken to us about it and basically said make a decision or we will," he said.
"They see assets not being utilised to their full potential. There are too many tracks for the number of horses, and that includes training tracks. It's seen as dead money."
McCarrison said he was acting on a mandate he received at the club's Annual General Meeting last year to enter discussions with RACE and negotiate terms.
He said the proposal would guarantee the training track's immediate future and under the partnership LRC would have two seats on the RACE board.
As part of the deal the LRC plans to transfer $500,000 from its $1 million of cash reserves to its subsidiary Levin Track Operating Trust for day-to-day management of the training track.
LRC had received guidance from former RACE chief executive Alisdair Roberston in negotiations with RACE, he said.
McCarrison said the club hadn't obtained a current market valuation of its landholdings, but his estimate was $10 million "at least".
The club currently held three annual licenced race meetings at the Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club's racecourse. Those meetings could be held at Trentham or Awapuni in future under the RACE partnership, he said.
It wasn't the first time that LRC members had been asked to cede ownership. In 2006 a majority of members voted heavily against a motion to sell out when its track and landholdings were estimated to be worth $4 million.
LRC's membership was in decline for a number of years, although there had been a recent surge in interest with the club receiving 35 membership applications in the last few months - albeit some were lapsed subscriptions.
In a May club newsletter McCarrison said he was concerned by a heightened interest in membership and new members would not have voting rights at the SGM.
Since then the committee's position had changed and new members could now vote at the SGM. Not all membership applications were accepted, however.
The motion would need a 75 per cent majority vote of members to pass under the club's constitution, he said.
The notice of the SGM first appeared on July 1 calling for a meeting on July 24. The meeting had since been rescheduled to 11am, August 21, at Levin Cosmopolitan Club.
There had been a request for audited copies of all club accounts, copies of trust deeds from all LRC's subsidiaries, and copies of the draft agreements with RACE to be provided to members prior to the SGM.
The new stalls at Levin racecourse have room for 120 horses.
Levin Racing Club was once the poster club for rural New Zealand Racing with a midweek meeting in the early 1980s that boasted the third-highest on-course turnover of any meeting in the country.
The course was closed as a racing venue in the early 1990s.
In 2008 the club formed a trust and partnered with a development company to build 50 villas on the old racecourse car park, with the intention that profits and an annual return be used to subsidise and safeguard the track as an equine training venue.
