Bellew: 'Racing is not a North Island product, it’s a New Zealand product'
“This is my first year at $100,000 so the club is making a point. The club is saying to New Zealand Racing, ‘please take notice of us’."
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Southland Racing Club boss Sean Bellew wants national officials to start taking notice saying horse racing is ‘not just a North Island product’.
The Southland Racing Club will host its first-ever $100,000 race, the Southland Guineas, on Saturday at Ascot Park in Invercargill.
The meeting will also include the $50,000 Invercargill Gold Cup, five $40,000 races, and two $15,000 races.
The club has received 147 nominations for the nine-race meeting which Bellew says is the largest number of horses the club has had nominated for over 10 years.
“We’ve got half a dozen Canterbury-based trainers and one North Island trainer bringing horses down.
Group 3 status races in New Zealand start at $80,000 but the Southland Racing Club’s $100,000 Southland Guineas race remains a listed race.
Bellew hopes New Zealand racing officials will take notice of what was happening in Southland and Group status would come in the future.
“They tell me someone has to lose a Group race for someone to gain one. I understand the matrix, but gee, they’ve got some piss-poor racing.”
“This is my first year at $100,000 so the club is making a point. The club is saying to New Zealand Racing, ‘please take notice of us’.
“Racing is not a North Island product, it’s a New Zealand product.
“They will not give a Group 3 race to a better gardener in New Zealand, we will nurture that thing and grow it.”
The Group status tag is just that, status only, with few other benefits to the club attached to it.
But Bellew says it would at least indicate the Southland Racing Club was a “worthwhile metropolitan club”.
“They call us country racing. Well, I’m sorry, I don’t accept that. We are not rednecks and hicks, we are fierce competitors, we’d be one of the wealthiest clubs in New Zealand.”
The club is in a strong financial position following some real estate deals from land the club owned, Bellew says.
That prompted the decision to ramp up the stakes for Saturday’s meeting.
“I’ve put my money where my mouth is and it’s not a one-off wonder. If we carry on with our investments, with the way they are going, I’ll pour more money into it next year.”
The club also runs the popular Christmas at the Races meeting in December and used the profits from that to boost stakes at other meetings, including Saturday.
“We’ve had the money sitting there. It’s all very well earning .5% on your money so I thought why not give it back to our people?
On top of getting a Group race, Bellew wants more race days in Southland.
He says $550,000 has been spent improving the Ascot Park track over the past five years and currently the Southland Racing Club is allocated five meetings a year.
“There is a real gap in the calendar in January…it’s ridiculous.”
The Riverton Racing Club held its New Year’s Day race this year and the next thoroughbred race meeting in Southland was in Gore on January 21.