With Spring racing in full swing on home soil, I am thrilled to announce some exciting initiatives New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing has executed over recent weeks.

At the end of last season, LOVERACING.NZ, Canterbury Jockey Club and TAB supported New Zealand’s largest charitable funder of child health, Cure Kids during their Red Nose Day fundraiser. The inaugural Red Nose Day Races saw the racing industry raise over $102,000 to help Cure Kids to support ground-breaking research projects aimed at transforming the lives of children in New Zealand. Donations were made by LOVERACING.NZ and TAB for three races won by a jockey donning the Red Nose Day colours. There were also a range of activities on course including a Charity lunch with around 200 attendees, plus an in room and silent auction, with all proceeds donated to Cure Kids.

Our Welfare department has recently collaborated with the team at Sustainable Action for Racing to initiate ‘Kick Up for Kiwis’, with an aim to arm our industry with accurate information, facts and statistics on what some may consider to be confronting and controversial topics within horse racing.

Prior to the running of the Melbourne Cup each year, mainstream media tends to put our industry under a microscope, allowing us to become a more dominant topic of conversation. Around this time, we face increasing pressures to defend our Social Licence and ahead of this year’s race, we want to help our participants feel more confident in combatting negativity towards horse racing, armed with facts to defend mistruths and bias.

By establishing Kick Up for Kiwis, NZTR has committed to fostering meaningful engagement with our participants by delivering informative content that empowers our community to challenge and dispel misconceptions about horse racing prevalent in the mainstream.

We plan to host three Kick Up for Kiwis workshops, held in the Waikato, Central and Northern districts on the dates indicated below:

• Waikato Workshop - Monday 2 October, 11am
  Matamata Racecourse, State Highway 27, Matamata
• Central Districts Workshop - Tuesday 3 October, 11am
  RACE Awapuni, 67 Racecourse Road, Awapuni, Palmerston North
• Northern Workshop - Wednesday 4 October, 11am
  New Zealand Bloodstock, 10 Hinau Road, Karaka

The content in these workshops will be delivered by Kick Collective Founder and CEO, Vicky Leonard, who has played an instrumental role in establishing Kick Up for Racing in Australia.

Please note that there will be a workshop to be held in the Southern region at a later date. If you cannot attend any of the above dates but would like to register your interest to attend a Southern-based workshop, please email emma.thompson@nztr.co.nz.