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Granity Trotting Club. The headquarters of the club are at Granity. The club was formed in March, 1907, and is registered. The last meeting was held in April. 191-1. A list of the present members of the club and a copy of the club's last balance-sheet have been forwarded. The circumference of the course is 4 furlongs. The tenure is leasehold (twenty-years lease, with right-to-purchase clause), 20 acres freehold. The accommodation consists of a grandstand. The course is partially fenced on the inside. The nearest clubs using the totalizator are fifteen miles distant. The nearest clubs not using the totalizator are fifty-seven miles distant. If the people of the Buller district, with a. population of ten thousand, wish to see more than two days' racing in any one year they have to travel seventy-one miles to Reefton or a hundred and twenty miles to Greymouth. We have always carried out our meetings strictly in accordance with the rules of the Trotting Association. Stakes have been increased from £60 to £200. By the Deputation. —We are a very isolated district, and we contend that the opportunities for sport are fewer on the West Coast than in any other part of the Dominion. Any settler with sporting instincts here who wishes to attend a meeting is put to more expense than a person in any other part of New Zealand. Reefton is the only place that one can yisit and return from the following day. If wo go to Greymouth or Kumara or Hokitika we may be bar-bound and be held up for days. This club has held seven meetings, and has increased its stakes from £60 to £175, and we intend to make a considerable increase on that sum. When we first started we had some revenue from bookmakers, but now we have simply to rely on gate-money, nominations, and members' subscriptions. We have made several applications for a permit before, and we were practically second on the 'Trotting Association's list of recommendations. If we get a permit we are quite prepared to make all improvements that art 1 required to provide a good up-to-date trotting-track. We think we can make a trotting-track on our present course equal to any on the Coast, and we have the " sports " who are willing to do all that is wanted. At present we have only two days' trotting in the Westport distinct, and if we want more we must go cither to Reefton or Nelson, which a large number of our members do. We think that the Westport district could do with at, least three trotting meetings in the year. The Greymouth district, which is well served by trains, has about eighteen days' sport in the year. We think that is a proof that this district has been neglected in Ihe matter of sport in the past. We have a population of from fifteen to eighteen thousand. We would also like to point out that two of our members imported a pretty good stallion from America, but I hat horse is now in Christchurch owing to the lack of sport here and the inducement to breed. Under present conditions a horseowner in the district has absolutely no encouragement lo breed trotters or gallopers. The granting of a permit to Granity will greatly help sport along in this district, and we can work in with the other portions of the district. We do not wish to hold an isolated meeting. This is a convenient centre I'm the big mining districts of Denniston, Millet ton, and Xgakawa, where there are many miners, who are all " sports." Trotting has taken a big hold in the Westport district, but we have not sufficient opportunities to race. We wish to explain that should we receive a permit the Westport Trotting Club has granted us the use of its track for our first meeting. Westland Trotting Club, The headquarters of the club are at Eokitika. The dob was formed in February, 1908, and was registered with the New Zealand Trotting Association on the 9th March, 1910. The last meeting was held in January, 1914. A list of the present members of the club and a copy of the club's last balance-sheet have been forwarded. The trotting-track is of clay formation, the circumference being 6 furlongs, and is fenced both inside and outside. The tenure is leasehold—lease for five years from the Ist January, 1914, from the Westland Racing Club; rental, £15 per day, payable in advance. The lease is determinable on breach of conditions. The accommodation consists of,inside and outside grandstands, containing refreshment-rooms and booths, cloak-rooms, and all modern conveniences; stewards' room, weighing-room, jockeys' room, bird-cage, new silent totalizator-house, loose-boxes and stalls. The nearest club using the totalizator is at Greymouth, a distance of twenty-four miles away. The nearest club not using the totalizator is at Granity, a, distance of a hundred and fifty miles away. There- was a, tacit understanding with the association when the club was formed that a permit would be granted. Relying on this we entered into a contract to make a, trotting-track inside the course on the section leased to the Westland Racing Club. The track was constructed at a cost of £600, though when the contract was made by us it was estimated to cost £100 only. When the totalizator license was not issued we approached the Westland Racing Club, with the result that the latter body undertook the liability conditional on the amount paid by them being refunded. This undertaking was given. The Coast is still an isolated district, this being one of the reasons why a license was tacitly promised. Bui we rely not alone on the foregoing facts, but also on the further facts that the trotting-horso is essentially a utility animal, that this district is no longer a mining district but is a farming district, two dairy factories being within a radius of ten miles from Hokitika, where the track is situate, and three other factories operating south of Hokitika. South of Teremakau River (about fourteen miles north from Hokitika) there is no trotting club with a totalizator license, and yet with very little exception the occupation of the people is dairying and farming. With reference to the appointments, we stand in an exceptionally good position, as shown by the confidential report of the supervising official sent over by the Trotting Association. The club can confidently state that few clubs in New Zealand have such excellent appointments. In addition, we have never run our meetings without the assistance and advice of an advisory steward approved by the association. On certain occasions representatives of the Trotting Association and representatives (unofficial) of the Racing Association

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