Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
Written by Renee Geelen
A recent spate of race meeting postponements in NSW have created discussion among trainers.
In the first ten days of July in NSW, there have been five race meetings and three trial meetings postponed with a further three postponements announced for the upcoming week and another meeting moved to a new track.
“They cancel race meetings at the drop of a hat and it’s costing a fortune. If you go to New Zealand or Ireland or France, they race on these type of tracks all the time. We’ve got to toughen up, twenty years ago we didn’t cancel,” said Gai Waterhouse.
“The crux of the issue is that the tracks are watered all the time now. Firstly that stunts the growth of the grass roots, and when it does rain, the track turns into a quagmire. Tracks in autumn, winter and spring don't need water. If the tracks are overwatered, then the roots aren’t deep enough so the track chews up quickly.
“It (postponement) leaves everyone out of pocket, except the jockeys who still get their riding fees. And it messes up programming for our horses. Their next stage might be a spring campaign, but they can’t get that vital trial if the trials are cancelled.”
Racing NSW confirmed to The Thoroughbred Report that jockeys still get their riding fees for postponed meetings.
“They cancel race meetings at the drop of a hat and it’s costing a fortune. If you go to New Zealand or Ireland or France, they race on these type of tracks all the time. We’ve got to toughen up, twenty years ago we didn’t cancel.” - Gai Waterhouse
“It’s very frustrating. We have a lot of horses who need to get out and do things,” said Michael Freedman’s stable representative Sophie Johnson.
“The stewards give us very late notice too. We’ve often had horses ready to get on a truck at 6.30am, and we get told at 6am the races are off, so then the horse needs to get out and work at the last minute. We aren’t bagging Racing NSW though, it’s just inconvenient and there’s nothing that can be done about the weather.”
In the upcoming week, Muswellbrook’s Tuesday meeting has been moved to Thursday, while Taree’s Thursday meeting has been shifted to Saturday. The Coffs Harbour meeting scheduled for Saturday July 13 has been abandoned after the track received 110ml of rain in the last seven days.
“I can understand everyone’s frustration, but ultimately from my position, it’s not just us (trainers) affected,” said Mitch Beer.
“You go to the studs and spelling farms and breakers. Everything is behind because of too much water. We can all get a little bit selfish but it’s an unseasonable amount of rain. It is what it is, you can’t do much about it (the weather).
Gai Waterhouse | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“It’s easy to point the finger at Racing NSW and say not enough is spent on infrastructure. It’s happening though. At Kemble Grange, there’s a multi-million dollar upgrade to the tracks here. A track like Newcastle took two meetings in a week recently, and raced outstandingly which shows the quality of a fully renovated track. No one was singing its praises. Randwick on their big day with 100ml and coped. The money is being spent, it’ll just take a while to get results.
“The people who run Racing NSW aren’t dumb. They don’t do things on the spur of the moment. We’ve had a brutal last winter and this winter, but to jump up and down and say that not enough is invested into tracks is the easy out. And the argument that we used to race on tracks like this all time is silly. It’s different time now and owners expect us to keep our horses safe. If stewards and jockeys think it’s unsafe, I don’t want my horses to get hurt either.”
“It’s different time now and owners expect us to keep our horses safe. If stewards and jockeys think it’s unsafe, I don’t want my horses to get hurt either.” - Mitch Beer
Among the current infrastructure projects being completed by Racing NSW are a full rebuild of the Kembla Grange B Grass, the Gosford track is being recambered to fix an issue, Scone is getting 300 more boxes and a polytrack training surface, Dubbo is getting a new training track and the main course is being resurfaced with upgrades to drainage as well as timber railing replaced, and the Sapphire Turf Club is getting 24 boxes. Orange is also upgrading some old stable facilities to increase the potential number of horses that can be trained there.
A full renovation of Port Macquarie course proper has been completed with racing to commence in September, while Wyong will undergo a rehabilitation after the Wyong Cup in September.
