Racing great Andrew Castles reflects on his 30 year career and cancer diagnosis

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Andrew ‘Butch’ Castles’ love of racing began huddled around a radio with his maternal grandmother, listening to the horses as they thundered down the racetrack and across the airwaves.

Now, after more than 30 years at the forefront of New Zealand’s racing industry, Castles is stepping down as Waikato Thoroughbred Racing’s chief executive after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. His last day will be on June 30.

While he was disappointed his tenure has been cut short, Castles said he was “equally happy with where I'm leaving the organisation”.

“I'm comfortable that the organisation is in good hands and has a good board, a good governance structure, and has the ability to be a leader in the industry going forward.”

During his six-and-half years as chief executive, Castles led the club through the Covid-19 lockdown, oversaw the successful merger of the Waikato, Cambridge and Waipā racing clubs, and set out the groundwork for WTR’s 164ha Greenfields project.

He described the Tamahere farmland which the WTR had a conditional offer on as “the best location that you could ever wish for a racecourse into the future”.

“I would have loved for that to be a legacy project to be involved in … from now through to its completion.

“Unfortunately, life has dictated that that can't be, so it's just the way it is.”

Before starting out in the racing industry three decades ago, Castles grew up in Dannevirke, a rural town in south of Hawke’s Bay.

It was during his time as a boarder at Lindisfarne College in Hastings he first acquired the nickname he’s known by today.

“We were reading a book, a class book and there was a character in the book that was Butch,” he recalled.

His classmates decided the name fitted, “and so it’s been Butch ever since”.

Listening to the radio with his grandmother was not Castles’ only early exposure to racing. Aged 15, he’d go with his classmates to watch races at the Hastings Racecourse - a club he has been involved with on and off over the course of his career.

“We managed to sneak down there on a Saturday amongst sporting endeavours and even midweek we could sometimes get down there for the last few races with the assistance of some unnamed teachers,” he said, laughing.

After finishing school, he went on to work at racecourses around the North Island, including Auckland Racing Club, Hawke’s Bay Racing and Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club.

Asked what motivated him to move to Waikato, he replied the region was “the heart of racing, the pulse of the industry”.

“The idea of being in the heart of the thoroughbred industry was appealing,” he said.

When he was shoulder tapped by Waikato Racing Club’s then chairperson Karyn Fenton-Ellis to replace outgoing chief executive Ken Rutherford, Castles accepted, relocating to Hamilton with his wife and two children - and was immediately plunged into the deep end.

On his first day, it was announced the country would be going into lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving Castles to figure out how the club was going to navigate the closure.

“I was responsible for Te Rapa [Racecourse] and we had to manage our way through how that was going to be managed, irrigated, mowing, fertilised, all of those things that had to happen,” he said.

“I spent the next … 24 hours working out how we were going to deal with it, what the staff were going to do and how, and then I went back to Hawke's Bay and operated from a desk in the rumpus room in Hastings helping the industry navigate the Covid period.”

Castles is also proud that the racecourse did not lose a single commercial tenant over the course of the pandemic.

“We needed to work through how we could help them get through the crisis and we did that, and those commercial tenants are still with us - which is fantastic.”

In 2023, he oversaw the merger of Waikato Racing Club, Cambridge Jockey Club and Waipā Racing Club into WTR in August 2023.

“There's always been an aspiration for a new Greenfields Racecourse and for the three clubs to pull that together [while] all operating separately was never ever going to happen,” he said.

“The only way that we could see it coming about was if they merged into one entity and we're a united operation off one chequebook and unified in the approach.”

Now, he said, the three racetracks were united with a singular mission: creating a new racetrack for the region.

Before his departure as chief executive, Castles is trying to make sure his replacement has everything they need to lead WTR into the future.

It was “a massive job” for whoever took the role on especially with the Greenfields development to oversee, he said, before adding it was a rewarding role.

“It's an amazing industry with some wonderful people in it and the more that you appreciate and understand it, the easier it'll be to come to work in the morning.”

He was thankful to the WTR board, which had supported him and his family over the past 10 months as they came to terms with his diagnosis.

Ahead of his last day, the club held a ‘WTR Thanks the Castles Family’ race meet, which Castles described as a “lovely” gesture.

“This has been a tough time for them as well so that was really nice that the board chose to acknowledge my leaving, but doing it through a vehicle that acknowledged the family as well.”

And while he’s stepping down, it’s not goodbye yet - Castles said he and his family would continue to be involved at the racecourse.

“I can’t imagine there’ll be too many rest days go by where I’m not here in some way, shape, or form.”