{"id":342060,"date":"2023-10-27T04:05:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T04:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=342060"},"modified":"2023-10-27T05:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T05:01:12","slug":"champion-racehorses-burial-site-desecrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=342060","title":{"rendered":"Champion racehorse's burial site 'desecrated'"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on <\/strong><\/em>Stuff<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and is reproduced with permission\ufeff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Diggers have moved onto the site of Auckland's Alexandra Park raceway where champion racehorse<\/a> Cardigan Bay is buried \u2013 in what some trotting supporters have called a "desecration".<\/p>\n

The grave site and surrounding land is being turned into a car park.<\/p>\n

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The headstone, plinth and rose garden that had marked the burial place of New Zealand<\/a>'s greatest harness racehorse have now been removed.<\/p>\n

The NZ Trotting Hall of Fame had wanted Cardigan Bay's remains exhumed and moved to a new site, but the Auckland Trotting Club (ATC) refused, saying the estate of the former owners did not want the remains exhumed under any circumstances.<\/p>\n

ATC president Jamie MacKinnon\u200b said the hall of fame building next to the grave site had also been removed and the land was being prepared for "the next stage of its life", which would be a car park in the interim, and eventually a hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The site of the grave had been surveyed, marked and a plaque would be placed over it, MacKinnon said. The club planned to erect a memorial somewhere else on the racecourse "some time in the near future", but hadn't decided where.<\/p>\n

The headstone and plinth have been placed in storage.<\/p>\n

Barry Lichter\u200b, a racing journalist and president of the Hall of Fame, said it was a desecration.<\/p>\n

"It's totally disrespecting the greatest racehorse New Zealand has ever seen," he said.<\/p>\n

"Previously, it was marked with a marble headstone and a rose garden and people could go there and pay their respects and now it's going to be underneath a Toyota Corolla."<\/p>\n

The Hall of Fame had considered taking High Court action to have the horse exhumed but had been advised that would be costly, with no guarantee of success.<\/p>\n

Ross Dallimore,\u200b a trotting club supporter and civil engineer with experience in dealing with resource consent issues, said he was taking advice on whether the earthworks could be stopped until Cardigan Bay's remains were "ceremoniously exhumed".<\/p>\n

"To me it's total desecration – that's what I'm trying to stop."<\/p>\n

\"V'landys'<\/p>\n

MacKinnon said he doubted there would be anything left to exhume. Cardigan Bay was buried in 1988.<\/p>\n

"What are you going to find? It's probably just dust. It's not like digging up dinosaur bones."<\/p>\n

But Lichter said archaeological experts had advised it was "highly likely" that horse bones would still be present.<\/p>\n

He said more than 700 people had signed a petition to stop the grave being paved over, as it meant a lot to people.<\/p>\n

For example, the ashes of one of New Zealand's most respected racing writers, Ron Bisman, were scattered over Cardigan Bay's grave in a ceremony attended by a who's who of racing in 2016.<\/p>\n

MacKinnon said a previous board of the club had decided to "maximise the value" of the Epsom land by developing it.<\/p>\n

"I guess people will be upset but they have to be realistic… you've got to move with the modern times."<\/p>\n

The club is in financial strife, having lost more than $100m in a disastrous apartment development at Alexandra Park, and has been forced to sell chunks of its land to pay off debt.<\/p>\n

Cardigan Bay won 29 of 47 races in New Zealand and Australia, before going on to more success in the US.<\/p>\n

By the time of his retirement in 1968, he had become the first harness racing horse in the world to win $1m. That year he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, just before the Beach Boys sang Good Vibrations.<\/p>\n

He was immortalised on biscuit tins and became the first horse on a New Zealand postage stamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on Stuff and is reproduced with permission\ufeff Diggers have moved onto the site of Auckland's Alexandra Park raceway where champion racehorse […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":342062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342065,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342060\/revisions\/342065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/342062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}