Racing: Avondale approaches end of road

Kingsinga could win the last feature event to be run at Avondale, the Rosebank Business Governor-General's Cup, on Saturday. Photo / Sarah Ivey

A meeting at the Avondale Hotel on August 30, 1889, was the catalyst to start racing at Avondale.

A meeting at Avondale Racecourse itself on Saturday may end it.

All bets are on hold whether the Avondale Jockey Club can find its way back to race on its own course after Saturday's final meeting in the immediate future.

AJC administration is hoping - really hoping - it can somehow find the financial strength to make it viable to race again at Avondale after Saturday's meeting on the historic course, something which is currently not possible.

A short time before the AJC was formed, 111 years ago, a trip to Avondale from downtown Auckland took nearly an entire day.

Good roads were needed to get the throngs there and when those roads were built, the throngs arrived.

The problem is now the opposite - getting the people to travel down beautiful roads to Avondale.

In all sports, though racing is an industry more than a sport, the public want to see the best athletes, equine or human.

They want tests and Super 14, rather than club rugby. Anything international, rather than domestic.

The Auckland Racing Club, Waikato Racing Club, Wellington Racing Club and Canterbury Jockey Club run their share of domestic days, but survive on their test days.

The Avondale Jockey Club has been reduced to mainly club rugby days with little or no chance to "get out" financially.

Whether the AJC eventually sells sufficient land to allow the club to race back at Avondale or not, Saturday will be a sad day. The club was once the envy of all other clubs.

It was innovative in the extreme.

It got international participation most others only dreamed of.

Some will remember Frankie Dettori's father, Gianfranco Dettori, riding there on an international Avondale Cup Day.

Some might even recall overhearing the late Ray Verner steaming after the Italian's beaten ride on champion sprinter Blue Blood in the Concorde. The key was if you wanted to go to a major Avondale day, you got there early.

The club has attracted good fields for this time of year on Saturday, doubtless drawn by the attractive race stakes.

It won't go out in the style of the 1970s and 1980s, but let's hope it goes out with dignity.

It's not the end of the road.

Can't remember who said it - not a journalist - but someone declared that there ain't nothing that can't be fixed.