"No-one except the wind saw the old place make her final curtsy to the earth and sky."
That was Tuwhare in his classic poem, The Old Place, a literal tale of an abandoned house mouldering away in an unloved rural area, and a metaphor for the pain of abandonment and loneliness.
Is this indeed the end for the "old place" of southern racing? Has Forbury Park seen its last close finish, heard its final clip-clop of hooves on the track, taken its last bet on the tote? Has it already, unknowingly made its final curtsy?
It looks a bit grim for the 111-year-old track, which appears certain to be one of the major casualties of the sweeping changes made to the New Zealand racing calendar.
The trots were already in some financial strife before the economic devastation wrought by Covid-19, and both harness and thoroughbred racing in this country were set for seismic change following the creation of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (Rita) last year.
Rita, tasked by Racing Minister Winston Peters to do whatever it took to get a crumbling industry on to a financially sustainable footing, has set about identifying tracks and meetings that can be sacrificed in the interests of the greater good.
The draft racing calendar for the 2020-21 season landed in the middle of last month, and submissions on the draft closed on Monday.
Other clubs in the South will be dealt harsh blows if the calendar is unchanged in its final form. The Waikouaiti Racing Club will lose its beloved New Year’s Day date, the thoroughbred meeting at Omakau will be moved to Cromwell, and both Roxburgh and the Gore Harness Racing Club will not be able to race from their home bases.
It is hard not to feel Forbury Park, even if it is a long way from much of the horse population, has been treated the harshest of all, as it has been completely scrubbed from the draft calendar, raising the prospect that harness racing in Dunedin is finished — the only hope being possibly a few grass track meetings at Wingatui.
Even if we acknowledge the realities of the battling racing industry, that would be hugely sad for the trotting community — the club and its stalwarts, the trainers and owners, the punters who braved all those chilly South Dunedin nights.
Forbury Park’s strength (its floodlights) effectively became its weakness as it was forced into Thursday-night racing. Paradoxically, it served a useful role for the industry and has essentially been punished for performing that role.
Like its late and much-lamented mate a few blocks away, Carisbrook, Forbury Park contributed mightily to the social and sporting history of the city.
The reclaimed swamp held its first harness meeting in 1909, having earlier been home to the Otago Jockey Club before it upped sticks to Wingatui.
In 1961, it became the first South Island venue to host a night meeting, in front of 12,000 fans. Four years later, it became the first New Zealand track outside Auckland or Christchurch to host the Interdominions, labelled by the Otago Daily Times as the ‘‘biggest money-spinner for Dunedin since the Goldrush’’, and 16,000 people watched the event’s first and only dead heat.
The Interdominions haven’t been back, and crowd numbers now tend to be in the dozens, not the thousands.
But if the old place is consigned to history — and what happens to the grounds then is a question for another day — when the calendar is confirmed on July 3, it will still be a sad day for Dunedin.
