New role for John Denton at Addington

Prompted by the resignation of Racing and Marketing Manager Darrin Williams, Addington Raceway has restructured its management team.

After being involved in the sport's administration for 40 years, both at Addington Raceway and Harness Racing New Zealand, Williams has left to take up a new position as Welfare Strategy and Operations Manager at Greyhound Racing New Zealand.

Effective immediately John Denton, who was the Property and Facilities Manager, will take over from Williams in a new role as Racing and Property Manager.

He is part of a senior management team that includes Chief Executive Brian Thompson, Catherine McLeavy (General Manager-Corporate Services), and Graeme Jones (Events Centre Manager).

"When we were searching for Darrin's replacement, we had to look for someone who had knowledge, passion and appreciation of the harness industry, someone that was employed in the industry and related well to our stakeholders and someone that already had a strong relationship with HRNZ and we believe that JD has all of these," says Thompson.

For Denton, the new job comes after he started out at Addington as a grounds and trackman in the 1990s. He is well known and liked throughout the racing industry.

Denton says, "the biggest challenge is representing the club to ensure we are being well heard, and I am sure there will be a lot of discussions with HRNZ in terms of race dates and funding.”

Denton will also oversee Addington's property portfolio. Responsibility for the upkeep of the track and grounds now sits with Jeff Denton as Track and Grounds Manager, ably assisted by Chris Pearce and Kevin McClintock.

As HRNZ's Track and Venue Inspector John will continue to be responsible for racecourse inspections around the country.

Commencing in mid-August, Rachel Deegan has been appointed Sponsorship Manager. Well-known in the racing community, Deegan was involved in standardbred administration for more than 20 years, originally with PGG and most recently with NZB Standardbred.