Sports correspondent & historian with Sideline Sid

Last Saturday, Ellerslie racecourse in the City of Sails hosted the wealthiest thoroughbred race meeting ever held in the country.

Almost $9 million in stake money was on offer, headlined by the inaugural ‘Kiwi’, worth a staggering $3.5m.

On Saturday, I cast my memory back over a decade when I again dipped my toe back into racehorse ownership.

The thoroughbred racing industry was in disarray with little prospect of a sustainable future.

One local trainer told me he was his stable’s lowest hourly remunerated person.

Race meetings were a rumour mill of pessimism, with tales of owners and trainers on the verge of shutting up shop.

In 2018, Racing Minister Winston Peters commissioned Australian breeder and administrator John Messara to review and make recommendations for thoroughbred racing in New Zealand.

Messara returned with a report that had found serious malaise in the New Zealand thoroughbred industry, which required major reforms.

Three of the most contentious issues were the closing of racecourses, selling the wagering platform of the TAB and winter racing surfaces.

So began the revival of thoroughbred racing in the country, culminating in the full house at Ellerslie racecourse last weekend.

The closing of (mainly rural) racecourses drove a storm of protest in communities such as Dargaville, Wairoa, Stratford, Blenheim and Reefton.

Hokitika, Waimate and Wyndham were vehemently opposed to shutting down racing in their districts.

I fully understood the passion as a voluntary Wairoa Racing Club committee member in the 1980s.

The biggest money-maker in Wairoa each year was the three-day racing carnival, which hit town each February and brought visitors for an entire week.

Legislation culled the country’s racetracks from around 50 to some 28 courses today.

Three all-weather tracks were added at Cambridge, Awapuni in Palmerston North and Riccarton Park in the South Island on existing courses.

Adding the three artificial surfaces shifted much of the winter racing away from grass to give courses time to revitalise during a winter break.

The sale of the TAB to an international betting conglomerate provided the biggest boost to reinvigorating horse racing in the country.

A higher guaranteed wagering income gave a big boost to the level of stake money, which is the lifeblood of the sport.

Prize money went from a minimum of $7000 per race a decade before to today’s minimum of $17,000.

Just as crucial as the increases were the distribution of stake money back to 10th place, which spread the prize money back to more participants.

This summer, crowds have returned to the track in their thousands, reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s, when local races were the Big Day Out for many people.

Proof of the success of the $9 Million Day at Ellerslie was the pursuit of the big dollars on offer by horses from some of the biggest stables in Australia.

However, words of wisdom suggest that racing administrators keep their eye on the ball and remember when the racing bubble burst after the share market crash 1987.