Dargaville Racing Club president Tim Antonio. Photo / John Stone
The Dargaville Racing Club is on a list of 20 of the country's 48 tracks likely to close if recommendations in a racing industry review are adopted.
The club isn't letting the prospect spoil its popular spring picnic race meeting in November.
"Come along anyway, that's what we're saying," club president Tim Antonio said.
"Let's show everyone how popular this race day is. We'll either go out with a bang or we'll change their minds."'
The club's picnic race days were famous, he said.
"We've had more than 30 bus loads of people from Whangarei some years, not to mention from Auckland and further."
The reality is, though, the November meeting could be the last ever, ending the club's 140 year history of thoroughbred racing.
Club officials are still in the dark about what will happen following last week's release of the Review of the New Zealand Racing Industry by John Messara, commissioned by Racing Minister Winston Peters.
Dargaville has one of the highest on-track tote takes in New Zealand at its one day annual meeting, he said. It also costs the racing industry nothing.
"There's actually no reason for shutting us down. It's not only not fair, it's not logical," Antonio said.
"We stand on our own two feet. We own this racecourse freehold, pay all our bills, cover all the costs of putting on a race day and, as well, we turn over good money on tote."
The recommendations do not apply to clubs, only the tracks, and the end would come by the NZ Racing Board simply refusing to renew the race licence.
The Dargaville club could live on by using other tracks, running its own races and prizes such as the prestigious Northland Cup.
The Messara report bluntly described the Dargaville facility: "No training. Poor location. Poor infrastructure. Not required. Freehold. Better racecourse at nearby Ruakaka. Dargaville RC should race at nearby Ruakaka".
"We probably won't be going to Ruakaka," Antonio said.
"Not that we've got any bones to pick with Whangarei [Racing Club], they're a great club."
Harshly, the Messara report also implied Dargaville and some other venues were not photogenic enough for the international televised race circuit with "global wagering operations" - the review's envisaged future of New Zealand racing.
Messara's review recommended the doomed clubs hand over their assets to a rejigged NZ racing entity so they could be sold, the funds spent on upgrading preferred venues.
The surviving race clubs would also hand over their assets and then lease them back.
Antonio said the Dargaville club's constitution held that in the event of the track being closed the land would be sold and the money distributed within the immediate community.
In June, Dargaville Racing Club's Spring Meeting regular, Winston Peters spoke publicly about the importance of racing in the regions, pointing out that more people went to the races at Dargaville than Avondale.
The Messara review was already under way at that time.
In Dargaville, it doesn't go down too well that a report by an Australian thoroughbred horse breeder/owner and the chairman of Racing New South Wales could end a 140 year — give or take a couple of recesses — history.
Messara's review described the NZ industry as "in a state of serious malaise", benchmarked by horse owners here only getting half the prize money as their Australian counterparts.
Also, Kiwis are not the avid gamblers Australians are (per capita in Australia NZ$225; New Zealand NZ$92).
"This denies the New Zealand TAB the scale required to compete with global wagering operators," the review said.
The trick is not to spread the resources too thin.
Antonio, whose club is looking down the barrel of a gun, isn't impressed.
"So, the rich get richer and the poor just go away," he said.
Bocky Boo Gelato opened in Whangārei in 2019 and quickly became a local favourite.