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Dewar Robertshaw (centre) with Graeme
Lang, winning driver of the 1985 Trotting Championship, Scotch
Notch and connections at the presentation ceremony |
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Dewar Robertshaw (seated far left) and Members of the Inter
Dominion Trotting Council at the 1983 Meeting. Graeme Cochran
(President) is seated second from right. |
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ADMINISTRATOR AND CLUB
PATRON
During his five-year term as president of the New Zealand
Trotting Conference (1983-87) Dewar Robertshaw became the only
man to reign as president also of the International Trotting
Association and Inter Dominion Trotting Council (1984-1987)
In 1994 he was awarded the Ern Manea Inter Dominion Council Gold
Medal for his services to trotting.
Robertshaw began his law career as a barrister and solicitor in
Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1937. Following World War
II, he spent
10 years in Somaliland, first as a magistrate, then as Attorney
General.
After settling in Auckland, he became interested in harness
racing and joined the Auckland Trotting Club as a member in
1965. He was elected to the club's committee in 1972, and served
as vice-president from 1981 to 1983. He was the club's delegate
to the Trotting Conference from 1972, and was elected to the
Board of the TAB in 1981 by Conference delegates. On winning an
election for the Conference presidency, he relinquished the
vice-presidency of the Auckland Trotting Club in 1983.
Dewar's defeat of the incumbent Conference president Sir James
Barnes marked the first time a sitting president had been
ousted. Although many pundits saw it as an upset win, Robertshaw
himself did not. “I gave myself a reasonable chance, because
four South Island clubs approached me to stand,” he told
delegates. “For the first time in my memory, parochialism has
gone out the window,” he added.
Proving this point, whilst there were 35 South Island and 23
North Island clubs, Robertshaw beat Sir James 36 votes to 22. It
was a great mark of respect for Dewar and his administrative
talents.
In his first speech as Trotting Conference president, Robertshaw
told clubs not to expect great changes under his leadership. “I
do not shoot from the hip. I will do my homework and seek the
co-operation of the executive in any decision-making,” he said.
He then added he intended to have a close look at the dates
structure, transport costs and centralisation. He also expressed
concern that the Conference executive was lax in implementing
recommendations approved by delegates at annual meetings. “If it
is not practical to implement them, then clubs should be told
why. To say they are only recommendations is not good enough,”
he said.
Indicating that he would stand down from the Auckland club's
vice-presidency, he said: “My job will be to look at trotting as
a whole.”
True to his word, Robertshaw displayed excellent leadership
qualities that as well as greatly improving the government of
harness racing in New Zealand led to him being elected to
tenures of chairmanship of the International Trotting
Association and Inter Dominion Trotting Council.
When Robertshaw had served his first year as NZ Trotting
Conference president, Canterbury harness racing scribe Dave
Cannan in his editorial in New Zealand's 1984 DB Trotting
Annual, wrote:
“There is a sense of order about the New Zealand Trotting
Conference. It was patently obvious at the annual meeting in
July – truly one of the best-organised and smoothly-run
conferences I can recall. Credit for this rests, I feel, with
President Dewar Robertshaw. His style may not please everyone,
but few could argue with his fairness in debate plus his
knowledge of the industry. He openly promotes division of
opinion from his executive – something unheard of until now –
and profits from it.”
In editing the 1985 Annual, Cannan wrote of Dewar’s handling of
that year’s annual meeting of Conference delegates in Greymouth:
“Best Solo Performance - Dewar Robertshaw, NZ Trotting
Conference president, for his widely-acclaimed centre-stage
efforts at the annual meeting at Greymouth in July. The
definition of a virtuoso, according to the Collins English
Dictionary, is: ‘A person who has a masterly or dazzling skill
or technique in any field of activity’; and that couldn’t sum
Dewar up better. He ran the meeting like he wrote the script and
produced and directed it into the bargain. But, while I join
those who admire him for his excellent skills as chairman, I do
not think the trotting industry is so healthy that it can afford
to have nearly 60 delegates sit quietly through the day and add
very little to proceedings.”
During 1983-84, he was Senior Vice-President of the Inter
Dominion Trotting Council, and after being installed as a Life
Member of the Auckland Trotting Club in 1985, Robertshaw served
on the committee through 1988. He became Club Patron in 1993, an
honour he retained to the time of his death in August, 1997,
aged 83.
On stepping down from the Trotting Conference presidency in 1987
after five years at the helm, he was honoured by the delegates
at the annual meeting at Oamaru and given a lifetime pass for
harness racing meetings. Typical of his willingness to assist
the code, he devoted his time over the next few years helping to
tidy up the cumbersome Rules of Trotting.
Very moderately involved as an owner, Dewar had his best success
in this department racing the useful pacing winner Huatu with
Doug Grantham.
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