Waikato Business News | January 12, 2024

6 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS
JANUARY 2024
ADVERTORIAL
The Waikato is the best
place to live work
and play in 2024
Winning with
cast offs By Mary Anne Gill
The new year is here and with
it comes a huge amount of
opportunity.
Business confidence is on
the rise and the Te Waka report simply
confirms what we have been seeing and
hearing since September. The election
has come and gone.
The Waikato turned blue with Cabinet
Ministers in Louise Upston and Tama
Potaka picking up very hefty roles, along
with Andrew Bayly – a minister outside
Cabinet in charge of commerce and
SMEs. We wish them all well in grappling
with everything 2024 throws at them
and wish the opposition well in holding
them to account with vigour.
The New Zealand economy may have
some distance to go to turnaround and
deliver us a softish landing, but inflation
will be a difficult genie to jam back in the
bottle. Price increases continue within
NZ despite inflation in some economies,
especially the USA, declining. However
black some may view the world, others
see a decade of growth prospects
that await businesses. Here in NZ the
new government brings opportunity
for the private sector. With a huge
infrastructure deficit, the country’s
borrowing capacity will require private
capital to join public money to get the
backlog built. Let’s get on with it.
There are some big challenges in
front of us. In health we need more
doctors and nurses so a medical school
at the University of Waikato is a no
brainer. In education there is such a lot
to do. Te Pukenga experiment is to be
decentralised, our universities need to
be properly funded as does our research
sector, but the big job will be improving
our primary and secondary students’
performance. We must get the basics
right as the foundation for our children’s
life after graduation.
For too long we have heard slogans
Don Good, CEO of Waikato
Chamber of Commerce.
and announcements but no action.
Ministers that dither are likely to
be demoted. The country wants
performance, not promises.
In the Waikato the foundations for
strong economic growth are there. Our
population is growing, and the median
age is still young. Families are coming
here attracted by the opportunities
that abound. We are a growing
manufacturing, tech and innovation hub
that is seeing graduates staying, and
new companies springing up.
If you are looking for evidence,
the list of finalists at the recent
Waikato Chamber Business Awards
provided it in truckloads. Firms that
few of us had heard of have been just
smashing it. Take a look at Invivo. Its
performance has been outstanding but
its partnerships with Graham Norton
and Sarah Jessica Parker should inspire
others to innovate in their marketing.
The big land developments in the
Waikato are continuing everywhere.
Ruakura just gets bigger, the Airport
land development continues as does the
work around Peacockes and in the north
of Hamilton we see Te Awa Lakes Te
Awa Lakes - The Perry Group emerging.
Cambridge is growing in all directions,
as is Morrinsville, Te Kauwhata, Pokeno,
and Ohinewai.
Don’t tell everyone – just the right
people – the Waikato is growing and is
the best place to live, work and play over
the next decade.
Nicky Chilcott returns fillies Pam (Vincent’s Girl) left, and Spice (KD Creation) back to the paddocks
after their workout and wash down.
Photos: Mary Anne Gill.
It’s 5.45am and the unmistakable smell
of horse poo suggests White Star Stables
is behind the hedge on Victoria Road in
Cambridge.
The instructions were clear, first stables
past the electric fence and there, down the
back, owner Nicky Chilcott is cleaning out
one of the night stables.
She has been awake nearly two hours
already – catching up on paperwork in her
Clare Street home before heading down the
road for the daily work out.
Chilcott, dubbed harness racing’s
winningest woman, runs a multi-million
dollar operation over the Cambridge
Raceway fence and employs, at last count,
about six staff “but we need more part
timers if anyone wants to join a good, fun
team!”
In any other business, they would call her
a chief executive.
At 52 her body screams out for attention
after years of accidents and falls. Her back
is shot, and she says the first 30 minutes of
each day are “not pretty.”
Two days after our interview she was
thrown out of the sulky at Alexandra Park
by a bad-tempered horse named Milly. She
landed heavily on that dodgy back – but was
in the cart for the next race 30 minutes later.
Chilcott was brought up in Morrinsville
where her father Graham was a successful
trainer. She did well at school and was
accepted into medicine at Otago University,
which she studied for two years before
crossing over and doing physical education.
In her last year of the degree, she collapsed
on the netball court with a brain injury
and spent months in hospital. She lost her
memory and went through rehabilitation
before returning home to teach at Hamilton
Girls High School.
“I’ve had my trials and
tribulations through
the years
In 1993, she had her first win as a driver at
Alexandra Park in Auckland, guiding home
Local Choice, trained by her father.
Four years later, she took over the
stables and in November 1997, she had
her first training success with Waharoa at
Cambridge.
Thirty years on from that first win Chilcott
- the first woman and only the 15th ever to
train and drive 500 winners - still works
seven days a week running her own business.
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE
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Senior writer Mary Anne Gill at Cambridge Raceway with Nicky Chilcott and Bella (Ocean Belle).