As at Monday 23 August 5:30pm

Earlier this afternoon, the Government announced that Auckland will remain in Alert Level 4 until at least 11:59pm Tuesday 31 August and further announced that the remainder of New Zealand will remain in Alert Level 4 until at least 11:59pm Friday 27 August.

As mentioned in previous updates, race meetings, trials and jumpouts can take place under Alert Level 3. This means that from Saturday 28 August, scheduled race meetings in the rest of New Zealand will be conducted as planned under Alert Level 3 protocols.

On Saturday, the scheduled Te Rapa and Awapuni race meetings will take place, and on Sunday, the Matamata race meeting will take place.

Please note that the race meeting initially scheduled for Ashburton on Thursday 26 August will now take place on Saturday 28 August.

The timing and rescheduling of trials and jumpouts will be assessed in coming days.

If your horses need to move between different Alert Level regions, you will need to be mindful of the fact that while horses can do this, people cannot. However, horse transportation companies have confirmed that they are able to assist in this area.

The Group 3 Cambridge Stud Northland Breeders’ Stakes, which was initially scheduled to be run at Ruakaka on Saturday 21 August, will now be run at Te Rapa on Saturday 28 August.

NZTR is still currently exploring viable additional racing opportunities over the coming weeks to help compensate for the abandoned race meetings.

Since nearly two weeks of race meetings, trials and jumpouts will have been abandoned, NZTR is also looking at the calendar overall, and assessing the need to alter future race dates, particularly as we build towards spring racing.

As we all know, racing has been able to continue in Australia throughout their various states of lockdown. However, their situation is vastly different to our Alert Level 4 situation.

The reality is that although there are “lockdowns” of varying degrees across Australia, their protocols are nowhere near as stringent as those imposed by the New Zealand Government; hence they are still able to race in Australia, while we are not.

As the Delta variant of Covid-19 continues to be present in the New Zealand community, we strongly encourage all racing participants to get vaccinated if possible, for the protection of both themselves and the rest of the industry.

Everyone is again reminded that they must wear masks in public places, and this includes when working with horses. Mandatory sign-ins were also announced by the Government yesterday.

Everyone is also again reminded that there are various Covid-19 financial support schemes available. For further information on these, you can head to: https://www.business.govt.nz/covid-19/financial-support-for-businesses/

As more information comes to hand over coming days, we will provide you with further updates.