The Forbury Park Trotting Club has been given four dates in next year’s racing calendar, two of them in Southland.
The greyhound club based at Forbury Park has been allocated no dates at all for the new season.
Three years ago, the trotting club had more than 20 dates but that has quickly been reduced.
It has been allocated 10 dates this season and is believed to be struggling to put on all of those meetings.
The track is set to close at the end of this season on July 31 as it is viewed unsustainable by Harness Racing New Zealand.
The club has been allocated two dates at Wingatui, on December 3 and March 21, and two dates at Wyndham, 172km south of the city, on January 26 and July 7.
Forbury Park Trotting Club chairman Craig Paddon said the club was entering a transitional phase by racing at the two venues,
"The club is pleased that Harness Racing New Zealand and TAB New Zealand continue to see value in supporting harness racing in the Dunedin area in the coming season," he said.
"We now look forward to working in conjunction with HRNZ, Racing NZ, Otago Racing Club and other industry and community stakeholders on venue feasibility work relating to future dual-code opportunities in the Dunedin area."
Forbury Park has five dates left in its season and there are doubts over whether they will all be raced because of worries of the cost of holding the meetings.
The meeting on May 27 is set to go ahead but the fate of the remaining four — on June 10, June 24, July 1 and July 8 — is up in the air.
More work is being done to ensure the meetings go ahead.
But the national bodies had decided on only two dates.
One of those is the dual-code meeting with Beaumont Racing Club in March.
"We welcome them with open arms but we had agreed to host six meetings and we have been knocked back," Acklin said.
He said the national bodies felt the trotting meetings were too close to thoroughbred meetings and would impact on the track.
One date discussed was to have Forbury Park racing on December 15 but national bodies felt it was too close to the racing club’s Boxing Day meeting.
Acklin said it was hard to fathom the reasoning as the club was confident it could hold successful meetings on both days.
The Otago Racing Club has basically retained the same dates as last season although through the movement of days on the calendar it had lost one date to Oamaru.
Overall, the Otago-Southland region has retained its 34 racing days from this season.
The synthetic track at Riccarton, which is under construction, has seven dates near the end of next season, taking some meetings off Ashburton and Timaru.
Otago Greyhound Racing Club general manager John Carlyle said the club was still in the dark about next season.
There was to be a meeting of greyhound club representatives from all around the country in Wellington over the weekend to discuss the future of the industry.
