Sports correspondent & historian with Sideline Sid

Following on from last week about the establishment of what is today Racing Tauranga, from the 1870s, there were picnic meetings held outside the bounds of regulation.

Unhampered by the rules and controls of today, there were joyful times when bookmakers called the odds to receptive audiences.

Strict parameters in later years took the devil out of racing. In those bad old days intrigue had no bound.

Inconsistent runnings and other ruses were but modest infringements against the blatancy of “ring-ins” where a better-performed horse was substituted under the name of a moderate performer.

One of the early picnic meeting tracks was at Bethlehem near the present town centre.

The course on the Waikareao estuary became the venue for the annual Christmas meeting and, with its beach and tidal waters, provided a stunning backdrop to the racing.

The 1970s book by GK Prebble entitled Horses, Courses & Men tells us that the Waikareao estuary meeting, which was organised by the Judea Māori population, started at the Ōtūmoetai end and proceeded behind Motupae Island to finish where the stockyards once stood on Waihī Rd.

When the tide was too far in, an event named a steeplechase was put on. The race crossed the main channel to the far side of the estuary. There were no jumps, but horses had to race through 300 to 400 yards of water, taking their own course to avoid the holes and deeper part of the channel.

To the delight of the crowd, the pandemonium of swimming horses and riders provided the best entertainment.

In spite of the trials to be encountered, many horses came over from the Waikato for the picnic meetings.

In the days before a road over the Kaimai Range, the horses were ridden and led over a narrow path near the vicinity of the summit.

The site of another unregistered meeting was Waitao, which was off Welcome Bay Rd. The course was partly obscured by the patrons and wasn’t popular with local punters.

Maungatapu, where the horses raced around the base of a hill, was considered a better track than the Welcome Bay course.

The course was considered fairly isolated from Tauranga, and the most popular transport to the Maungatapu races were the small boats that crisscrossed the harbour.

Further out, the Te Puke Racing Club raced at a course at Manoeka, where the track was formed by cutting through the fern and scrub.

A story was told where 12 horses started one race at Manoeka - and 13 finished.

One of the best-attended picnic meetings in the early days was at Katikati near the present-day RSA. Horses came over Thompson’s Track from the Waikato, with others journeying from far away as Thames, Paeroa and Waihī.

The goldfields were in full swing, and horse-powered coaches brought boisterous crowds of miners for a day out. It was a serious day of racing and gambling and a busy time for bookmakers.

The popularity of the unregistered meetings eventually proved their downfall.

The Tauranga Municipal Band decided to attend the convivial races at Matakana Island on New Year’s Day in 1921 rather than an official function at Mount Maunganui.

An offended city citizen reported the unregistered meeting to the police, and as a result, the meeting was raided, with the unregistered meetings no longer getting the unofficial seal of approval.