The nation's biggest day for horse racing kicked off today in Christchurch.
The nation's biggest day for horse racing kicked off today in Christchurch. Photo: Eleish Foon
Thousands showed up to the 116th Christchurch Casino NZ Trotting Cup at Addington Raceway.
Addington Cup Day organisers say The New Zealand Trotting Cup is the best known racing, fashion and agricultural festival in the country.
More than 20,000 punters swarmed the race course for a day of fashion, betting and booze and with some lucky to spot a single horse.
It was a feast for the eyes as people paraded in brightly coloured frocks, velvet suits and giant head pieces.
Punter Liam Donnelly was only there for the fashion and spent most of his savings on a shiny pink and blue pastel suit.
"I thought I'd go all out and spend way more money than I actually have... to be honest I don't actually watch the horses," he said.
With 11 races today the favourites have been defending champion Thefixer and Spankem, both out of Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen's All Star stables.
One lady attending the event said: "It's been 10 years since I have been here. I just felt like dressing up and a day off work."
Police were also out in force aside teams of St Johns medics, monitoring intoxication.
More than 20,000 punters swarmed the race course for a day of fashion, betting and booze. Photo: Eleish Foon
Meanwhile, the treatment of horses was on the minds of some of those attending the event, after an investigation in Australia earlier this year, which found more than 4000 race horses slaughtered by one abbitor.
Neither the Ministry of Primary Industries or Statistics New Zealand knew the number of horses slaughtered in New Zealand.
NZ Thoroughbred Racing said: "We do not slaughter horses on or after any race day, slaughter implies killing for meat or food.
"New Zealand is one of the safest racing jurisdictions in the world."
In the 2018-19 season 4759 individual horses raced in 2482 flat races with 13 fatalities, nine of these were the result of muscular skeletal injuries and four from cardiovascular incidents.
Since the 2011/12 racing season through until the conclusion of the 2018/19 season on 31 July across 21,457 races New Zealand had a fatality rate of 0.58 per 1000 starts.
A spokesperson from animal welfare group SAFE said they thought it was "strange" there were no recent figures showing the number of horses slaughtered and had been trying to find out for some time.
Last year, Cup and Show Week brought in $4.3 million dollars of visitors spending to the city's economy.
The event's organisers say they're hoping for similar numbers this time round.
Tomorrow also marks the start of The New Zealand Agricultural Show at the A&P Showgrounds in Christchurch.
