{"id":279796,"date":"2026-02-12T03:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/279796\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T03:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:44:08","slug":"crossed-fingers-as-rain-forecast-for-big-hawkes-bay-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/279796\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossed fingers as rain forecast for big Hawke\u2019s Bay weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a particularly big weekend for Central Hawke\u2019s Bay, starting on Saturday with Te Matatini 2027 qualifying festival Te Kahu o Te Amorangi Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu Kapa Haka Regionals<\/a> from 7am-8pm at Russell Park, Waipukurau.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, an eight-race programme at the Waipukurau Jockey Club starts with the first at 12.40pm, and features the $40,000 Wairoa Cup at 4.25pm, with Wellington Cup-winning Hawke\u2019s Bay jockey Kate Hercock<\/a> riding the top-weight.<\/p>\n

The race meeting is the second of three cup meetings in Waipukurau during the closure of the Hastings racecourse for track renovation. The first had a capacity crowd for the Waipukurau Cup in November<\/a>, and the third will be for the $120,000 Hawke\u2019s Bay Cup on April 11.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s events lead into the week of the February 19-22 Napier Art Deco Festival, again expected to attract thousands of visitors, among whom will be some of the 11,000 passengers from five short-stop cruise-liner visits to Napier from Monday to the end of the festival.<\/p>\n

National weather agency MetService is forecasting some rain for Napier each day from Friday to Monday.<\/p>\n

For the day of the rugby league, MetService is forecasting a maximum temperature for Napier of 24C with occasional rain, clearing in the morning, then partly cloudy, with southerlies developing ahead of possible heavy rain early on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Rain is also forecast for Waipukurau on Saturday, with possible winds added on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Manly squad is expected in Napier late today, with a closed captain\u2019s run scheduled for McLean Park tomorrow morning. Club legends Cliff Lyons, Steve Menzies and Kieran Foran will appear alongside Warriors great Tohu Harris and netball legend Irene van Dyk at a 5.30-8pm Friday speaking event at the park.<\/p>\n

The Warriors have a full programme, arriving tomorrow morning and staging an open captain\u2019s run at the park. Gates open at 1.30pm.<\/p>\n

Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, with more than 40 years\u2019 experience covering sports, other events and news in the region. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a particularly big weekend for Central Hawke\u2019s Bay, starting on Saturday with Te Matatini 2027 qualifying festival…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,806,1561,8834,6326,95457,28167,3685,9517,528,83481,2082,5616,1976,29137,111,139,69,2204,6560,381,213,165,2742,686,4767,1533,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-279796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2246","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-bay","11":"tag-big","12":"tag-biggest","13":"tag-crossed","14":"tag-enters","15":"tag-events","16":"tag-fans","17":"tag-far","18":"tag-fingers","19":"tag-for","20":"tag-forecast","21":"tag-hawkes","22":"tag-keeping","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-possibly","27":"tag-rain","28":"tag-region","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-their","31":"tag-thousands","32":"tag-week","33":"tag-weekend","34":"tag-will","35":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}