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DECEMBER 4, 2025
New racing home eyed By Mary Anne Gill
The search for a greenfield site to house Waikato’s racing industry appears to have narrowed to land immediately south of Hamilton and an announcement understood to be only days away. Waikato Thoroughbred Racing chief executive Andrew “Butch” Castles declined to comment citing the sensitivity of ongoing negotiations. “I can’t be clearer — it is very delicate and I am not in a position to comment,” he said. Industry sources suggest agents acting for the club have identified flat land near the Waikato Expressway, capable of accommodating a single, purposebuilt hub for racing and training. This move follows a landmark decision at last year’s annual meeting, where members of the newly merged Waikato Thoroughbred Racing - formed from Te Rapa, Cambridge, and Waipā racing clubs - endorsed a grand plan to sell existing assets and secure a “super site” of between 125 and 200 hectares. The preferred site needed to sit in a triangle from Hamilton north, down to Te Awamutu, and across to Cambridge, they decided. It needed good access to water, with the right kind of topography and non-peaty. A new site would eventually replace the racing and training venues in Hamilton, Cambridge and Te Awamutu. If the purchase proceeds, it would trigger a cascade of property sales, beginning with the 34ha site in Te Awamutu where the Waipā club raced from 1915 until the 2020-21
season and where around 100 horses still train. Cambridge with 61ha and Te Rapa with 50ha would have to remain operational until the new hub was completed, thought to be by 2035. The News understands the proposal has high-level government support and would be largely selffunded. Cambridge – which celebrated its centenary in 2019 - is home to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest thoroughbred training centre, with 1300 horses regularly working on its 13 tracks. That includes the country’s first synthetic all-weather horse racing track. The Polytrack surface is made from a mixture of silica, sand, carpet fibres, rubber and wax. Its $13 million cost was partly funded by the Provincial Growth Fund and was opened by racing minister Winston Peters in July 2021. Te Rapa in Hamilton, meanwhile, is Waikato’s premier racecourse and event centre, once spanning more than 150ha during racing’s heydays when thousands of punters flocked to race days. Racing first started on the course in 1924. Urban expansion in both Hamilton and Cambridge has steadily encroached on both venues, making the land increasingly valuable for residential and commercial development. The club is hoping to secure a private plan change to rezone 6ha for medium-density housing. Board chair Bruce Harvey said after last year’s annual meeting a greenfield site would centralise operations and future proof Waikato’s racing industry.
Urban expansion is encroaching on racing venues – such as Cambridge’s synthetic track in Racecourse Rd.
Challenges at Cambridge - where new housing has added traffic to roads used by horses - and the need to bring Waikato’s racing fraternity under one roof were key considerations. For Waikato Thoroughbred Racing, the solution lies in creating a modern super hub - a facility that secures the industry’s future, provides world-class infrastructure,
and ensures the region remains a powerhouse of New Zealand racing. Trainers would be able to either hire or lease land at the super hub while there would be an opportunity for racing-related ancillary businesses. The main racetrack would be sand-based but there would also be options for synthetic racing and
training tracks. While officials remain tightlipped, industry insiders describe the proposal as “exciting” and potentially transformative. With racing already contributing more than $500 million to the Waikato economy and supporting 3800 full-time jobs, a centralised hub could be the game changer that secures the industry’s future.
Rates cap ‘no surprise’ By Chris Gardner
Waipā District Council is already working towards striking rates within new Government guidelines to be introduced in 2029. Local Government Minister Simon Watts announced on Monday the Government has agreed to progress a rates cap. Under the plan, rates increases would be limited to a maximum of four per cent. “Rates are taking up more of household bills, and some communities have faced double-digit increases year after year. This is unsustainable and is only adding to the cost of living for many Kiwis. Councils would not be permitted to increase rates
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beyond the upper end of the range, unless they had permission from a regulator appointed by central government. Waipā mayor Mike Pettit was not surprised to hear of the cap but was surprised to hear how it would be implemented. The cap will apply to general and targeted rates, and uniform annual charges but exclude water charges and other non-rates revenue. “We have got some time to implement this,” he said. “In 2029/30 we are sitting at just over four per cent which we will need to bring down slightly and in the current Long Term Plan sitting at 2.2 per cent for the remaining four years.”
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