Also receiving his King’s Birthday honour this week was enormously popular Waikato harness racing personality Dr Luk Chin.
He became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to harness racing and health.
“He co-led the development of the Anglesea Medical Centre in Hamilton, Waikato’s first same-day surgical unit. He has since helped establish private healthcare facilities in Tauranga and Cambridge, as well as the Franklin Day Hospital in Pukekohe,” his citation read.
“He created a fund to provide financial assistance for future registrars wanting to advance their studies of anaesthetics.
“Dr Chin is New Zealand’s oldest licensed harness racing trainer and driver. He has trained horses to win more than 200 races, and has been a winning driver over 100 times.”
Another racing industry leader who received his King’s Birthday honour on Wednesday was Auckland Thoroughbred Racing chairman Doug Alderslade.
A member of the Auckland Racing Club board since 2003, Alderslade became chairman of the club in 2017, and he played a key part in the amalgamation of the Auckland Racing Club and Counties Racing Club into Auckland Thoroughbred Racing (ATR) in 2021 and was subsequently appointed chairman of the joint venture.
In his tenure as ATR chairman, Alderslade has overseen arguably the most transformative years in the club’s history, with Ellerslie becoming a world-class racecourse with the construction of its StrathAyr track and new stabling area, as well as securing the club’s financial future with the sale of the Ellerslie Hill.
Alderslade has been associated with the Auckland club for more than 50 years, and said he is proud of what his team has achieved in his time at the helm.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.