Bringing our racing history back to life: five-year restoration project nears completion
Garrick Knight - Raceform • October 11th, 2025 11:00 AM
An ambitious restoration project that has taken nearly five years to complete is just weeks away from being finished, and the fruits of that toil will be for the entire racing industry to enjoy.
More than 7000 tapes in the Trackside archive have been with a West Auckland company for the past two years getting converted and, in many cases, salvaged from outdated and obsolete technology.
The tapes, called U-matics, are mainly from 1992 to 1998 – the first six years of Trackside – and were the main technology of the time.
But in 1998, Trackside changed to a different format for recording its racedays, and that has since evolved further to the digital age we now find ourselves in.
Maryanne Twentyman is a long-time employee of Trackside and now works as NZ Media Talent Manager for Entain Australia and New Zealand. She was the driving force behind the move to convert the U-matic tapes, which were at risk of being lost completely through hardware degeneration.
“It has been a long and delicate process,” Twentyman told RaceForm. “The only way we knew what was on each tape was by the handwritten information on the spine, as we have not been able to play the tapes for years due to the machinery becoming largely obsolete.”
Twentyman says the project started due to the Covid-19 pandemic and that, together with Trackside presenter Nicole Sims, hours too numerous to calculate were logged in the initial stages.
“It would be too hard to put the hours or even days worked on this project into context.
“What I can say is initial prepping of tapes – sorting, barcoding, cleaning, boxing and filing – took the thick end of two years.”
Despite the conditions, she says, it was a passion project for both of them.
“There is no one in this country more excited about seeing our racing history protected than Nicole and myself.
“We often laugh about the conditions we worked in down in Hamilton over three years to firstly sort, transfer and then database over 18,000 tapes of various age and composition.
“It was a job that literally involved rats, mice, a heap of dirt and sheer determination.
“I had fantastic help from Nicole, who continues to assist me with the archive project today. It’s been a labour of love for us both, and it may never have got off the ground had we not been faced with the Covid pandemic.
“With major staffing changes resulting from the pandemic, particularly in broadcasting, it presented an opportunity to tackle the thousands of tapes slowly deteriorating in our archives.
“I have to thank the late Andy Kydd, the former Head of Broadcasting, for providing me with this chance to give life to such important history.
“Andy sadly passed away before the project was completed, but we've had great support from Entain’s Managing Director – New Zealand, Sam Moncur, who has backed the project, along with Nick Roberts and Niall Miller from TAB New Zealand.”
For Twentyman, there was a very personal motivator keeping her going. Her father, the late commentator and administrator Jack O’Donnell, was on those tapes.
“Hearing my father call races at his beloved Omoto racecourse was all the motivation I needed to get this project completed. We had very little audio of him calling before now.”
Silver Trak Digital was the company selected for the digitalisation project after an extensive assessment and tender process. And their expertise has been required to bring back to life some 70,000 races as well as other magazine-style shows.
“It has been a long and delicate process,” said Twentyman. “The digitising process in many cases required ‘baking’ of tapes in a virtual pie-warmer before the tapes were given one pass through the machine and digitised from there.
“The process required handling by archiving specialists, which is why the project was sent to Silver Trak.”
Not everything was able to be saved, but a large majority was, and there is plenty of feature racing from before Trackside (Action TV’s) start in 1992.
“We have a full catalogue of equine codes from the start of Trackside in 1992, however we have lost a few tapes along the way – due to deterioration – which were unable to be saved.
“During the archive project, the codes were consulted on what their priorities were.
“Prior to 1992, we have a good spread of feature racing through the 1980s and some gems from the 1970s as well.
“This was footage captured by independent contractors, who filmed racing on an ad-hoc basis around the country.
“These libraries were purchased by the TAB to build a library of vision as a foundation to launch Trackside.”
Twentyman says no decisions have been made beyond Silver Trak delivering on their project deadline at the end of November, and just how accessible the new archive will be to the public remains to be seen.
The project has come at a significant cost – with no financial assistance from external bodies – so that may come into consideration.
“Our main priority has been to complete the digitising process. Further decisions around access will be made once the project has come to an end, but it has come at significant financial cost.”
Already, salvaged videos are making their way on to Trackside television – such as footage of jockey Kylie Williams’ first victory from 1997, which was shown when she rode her 1000th winner last week.
“There is nothing better than seeing the hard work come to life when our talented production team dive into the archives and put old races on air.
“We often look forward, but it's pretty special to have the option to look back every once in a while.”
While most New Zealand races from 2003 onwards have now been digitalised by Trackside staff, the last piece of the puzzle is thousands of tapes from 1998 to 2003 that are in videotape format.
“We are still working through a collection of tapes that cover those years in-house, and this won’t be completed until late 2026.”
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