curious

When did it rain? Saturday night after the abandonment?

I think Chris was asked to wait as long as possible. He obviously took that seriously and went for him inside the 50!

Pam was actually looking quite flash at the birdcage interview today I must say.

Personally I think he's shown he is equally adept at 14/1600 but might slightly favour the 1600. You really need to think you have an even money chance to justify the expense of travelling one from Riccarton to Otago these days though and there are no suitable races in Canterbury till late January so at this stage he'll be retired after one more run.

Will reassess after that, but probably one more run and a new career.

Yep. You can't ride those sort of races without the cattle. They'll say he stole it but they ran a tick faster than the guineas ... perfectly rated. Super ride indeed but a gutsy performance by the horse and in particular a superb effort by the training team as you say nomates.

163 BSP

It's bullshit. It was clearly way too long. They cut it Saturday afternoon (reprortedly twice) and at 11 am the next morning after 7-8mms overnight rain the stipes reported the area dry and safe for racing. Put your hand up Tim.

Last time I was there it looked like almost all the grass was rooted.

I agree with him. NZTR have put policies and guidelines in place. If clubs like the CJC choose to entirely ignore them, whose fault is that?

Sounds to me like he deserved the serve.

Canterbury Jockey Club boss Tim Mills was devastated by the fiasco but says the investigation into how the track became slippery after a week of almost exclusively fine weather will have to wait. ... “We have heard ideas and even I have theories on what I think happened with the track but we simply don’t have time to investigate those fully yet. But we will as soon as we can.” Those remarks have to be a fucking joke. The whole world knows why the track was slippery. It was reported by jockeys, stipes and shown in HD vision on trackside. No investigation is required. The CJC failed to mow the track in accord with NZTR guidelines. Not much point NZTR issuing policies if clubs are going to negligently ignore them for whatever reason. Time to stand up and put your hand up Tim. The buck has to stop somewhere.

Maybe on the rail but not further out where the issue was?

My concern is that the inspection yesterday was conducted by stipes. No mention of any riders or anyone with racecourse turf management involved. Hopefully they gallop a few horses across that area this morning and get some feedback from riders before proceeding.

Meeting News Track Update From Canterbury JC At 11am this morning Stipendiary Stewards and Canterbury Jockey Club Management inspected the work that has been undertaken at Riccarton Park since the abandonment of racing during NZ Cup Day yesterady. That work included mowing with front mounted mowers and the application of the Verti-Drain machine to assist in alleviating any compaction. 9mm of rain fell on Saturday night and Sunday is a warm day with a moderate wind. The Stipendiary Stewards see no reason for racing not to resume with the remainder of the programme at Riccarton Park on Monday.

Did they vertidrain the whole track?

And after Monday, there is not a single suitable feature+ level race programmed in Canterbury for that horse until the end of January.

Hope they got the mowing finished.

I'm guessing that is the same issue as on the track at the 600. Not mowed. Grass way too long.

This is pure negligence and non-compliance by the CJC. They have failed by a large margin to comply with the venue preparation guidelines. Grass is supposed to be cut for 2 months prior any racemeeting through raceday to 90-100mls. It was quite clear from the trackside vision that the grass in that area was 150-200mm. This has come at huge cost to a whole range of participants (including the CJC themselves) and the CJC should be severely penalised. A year ago following the 4/12/21 Trentham abandonment a comprehensive review was ordered by NZTR. The board following a review of that report required a series of actions. One of those was: NZTR to implement a more robust compliance program for Clubs that do not adhere to track preparation procedures and annual maintenance plans, including consequences for non-compliance with policies and procedures, by February 2022 Has anyone seen that compliance programme or know what the consequences in it are?

I think Reefton meant the team doing the penetrometer readings doing the swerving!

It's a bit like them sending the crash test dummies out to check the track at Awapuni yesterday instead of inspecting it and maybe galloping a couple on it first. Plain negligent.

It's not that it happened that worries me. That's a mistake. It's that those who are supposed to inspect the track on race mornings including the course manager and stipes didn't, that's inexcusable. They obviously didn't even bother to drive around it.

If you are referring to the cones incident at Riccarton I don't agree. That is a mistake in that they were left there in the first place. Pure negligence and incompetence that the first race started with them still there.

I think punters lost a lot. Hours of analysis, pricing, getting bets on. All out the window.