The Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club was officially formed in 1886.
Is it possible that a race meeting at Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club’s racecourse this weekend heralds 200 years since the very first horses raced each other along a nearby beach?
While a field of finely-tuned modern thoroughbreds will contest the $400,000 feature race at the Ōtaki-Māori racecourse on Saturday afternoon, it is likely that any beach races in the 1820s would have involved ponies of mixed parentage with goods rather than money on offer.
Although the Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club itself wasn’t officially formed until 1886, race meetings were held inland as early as the 1840s and there were accounts of match races along the coast decades earlier.
The missionary Samuel Marsden was said to have arrived in Aotearoa with the first horses in 1814, a stallion and two mares. Horse racing quickly became the biggest game in town. William Webb Ellis was yet to pick up a soccer ball.
Māori struck an instant affinity with horses and quickly gained reputations as superb horsemen as horse racing began to flourish. As did the horse population. By 1911 there were an estimated 400,000 horses ashore.
And it didn’t take long for race meetings to evolve from ad hoc “there-and-back” affairs to highly organised events involving both Māori and Pākehā.
The book of a local Pākehā identity Rod McDonald, called Te Hekenga, has served to provide a unique insight into the nature of racing at the time in Ōtaki. He recalled his mother telling him of race meetings held on a course at Katihiku pā near the Ōtaki River.
The first meeting McDonald attended himself was in the 1870s near Ōtaki, where the Telegraph Hotel now stands. Prizes were saddles, blankets and clothing. One of the more unusual prizes was a rooster.
McDonald described the races as a big deal for Māori, who at the time significantly outnumbered Pākehā in Horowhenua. If there were 4000 people on-course, he estimated 200 were Pākehā.
Entire hapū would arrive with their racehorse, as several tribes including Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa and Muaupoko were involved. He described victory as a tribal triumph.
“Only someone thoroughly used to Māori life and modes of thought could catch the true spirit of the gathering. Every family brought their own food, and all visitors were made welcome by the resident Māori people,” McDonald said.
“Enthusiasm was huge. Crowds would surround each horse, yelling advice to the jockey. Haka often broke out and such challenges were met with a like response.
“The noise did not abate once the horses began running. The cheering was deafening.”
McDonald said it made the best efforts of a Pākehā crowd “sound like a gentle murmur”. The iwi or hapū who produced the winning horse would dash on to the course and perform a victory haka in front of their champion.
Bullock drays used to transport patrons to the course would act as grandstands. Races were run in heats of two miles. Horses had to be tough, they could end up running six miles by the end of the day.
McDonald observed that Pākehā became more involved in horse racing from the late 1870s in Ōtaki, although attempts to form other clubs in the area were unsuccessful. An Ōtaki Racing Club was formed in 1879 but lasted less than eight years.
Meanwhile, the Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club continued to hold successful race meetings. The Evening Post in 1890 reported after a New Year’s meeting that “The most pretentious racing club in the colony could not have managed a meeting more satisfactorily”. There were further reports before the turn of that century that the club broke national turnover records at a hack meeting in 1897, and even more money would have gone through the tote if there had been more tote windows to alleviate queues. There were descriptions of brass bands, Māori cultural groups, picnics, bars and various shops.
There was another report from the Weekly Press in 1898 after a Queen’s Birthday meeting: “The Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club’s Hack meeting will be one of the most interesting ... no wonder it is so popular with the public. The Māori’s (sic) on the West Coast of the North Island have the sporting instinct strong and are among the more enthusiastic patrons of the game. The Ōtaki-Māori’s (sic) conduct their meetings creditably managing themselves right down to the smallest details, providing their own music, and are excellent entertainers. For ‘up-to-dateness’ they cannot be given points, but the race meetings carried out as they are at Ōtaki have won the admiration of visitors, and especially those that have had but little acquaintance with the native of New Zealand.”
Much of the very early Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club history has survived through oral account although in the early 1990s journalist Alastair Bull wrote a detailed history of the club’s origins from the early days at the beach.
Bull’s research showed that while Māori had been running race meetings since the 1850s, the club did not “officially” form until 1886 and the first “official” race of the Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club was February 18, 1887, on a course at Rikiriki, north of the Ōtaki River.
The current course on the Te Roto-Rāhui Road block was purchased in 1906 and the first race meeting held in 1910. The track was remodelled in 1962, totalisator facilities were upgraded in 1973, a new members stand built in 1979 and a new public stand built in 1990.
The Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club is currently the only Māori racing club in the world, although it is not the only such club to have existed. Once upon a time there was an
Akura Māori Racing Club in Wairarapa, Waiomatatini Racing Club in Poverty Bay and the Turanganui Native Jockey Club in Gisborne - although none survived beyond the 20th century.
The club is one of the few truly indigenous clubs in the world, too. Only people descended from Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa and Te Atiawa can become full members.
The longevity of the club seems to lie with prudent management, particularly that of first president Hoani Taipua, who was also a member of the House of Representatives from 1884-1886, and that of subsequent committees.
In his book Bull said that early and continued success was due to the work of early club officials like Taipua, Henry Eagar and Ropata Te Ao with the support of Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa and Te Atiawa.
Fast forward to today, the club has ambitious plans for a new housing development that would go a long way to ensuring its long-term future. It has sought consent to build up to 600 residential housing units on mostly vacant land adjacent to the racecourse.
The housing plans provide for a mixture of single-unit, courtyard and terraced houses, apartments, and cluster housing with shared facilities, a childcare facility and upgrades to existing buildings used by community groups.
OMRC has formed a partnership with The Wellington Company, which will develop the village, and it has progressed to the stage where detailed design work on the proposal had been submitted to the Environmental Protection Authority for consent.
With the necessary consents, construction would begin and could be completed by 2029.