It’s all Goodie: surface is ready

TRACK specialist Mick Goodie has tipped the Eagle Farm track surface to race similarly on Saturday to when it made its debut on December 22.

Goodie says he has learnt a lot more about the best maintenance practices for the track during the past four weeks.

Eagle Farm will have its second meeting back on Saturday having been cut back, vertidrained and top-dressed since the first meeting.

The turf was cut back to 68mm after last month’s meeting, which raced at 89mm.

Goodie said the grass would be a very similar height this Saturday.

Eagle Farm has had 60mm of irrigation since Sunday.

Goodie said he was always learning and the evolution of Eagle Farm was no different.

“If you think you know everything, someone will come along and do it better than you,” he said.

“I’ve learnt a lot about the best time of year to be doing this.

“Going forward, I think the best time for the Brisbane Racing Club to do a renovation will be November more than January.”

Goodie said January and February were likely to be the peak danger times of the year for diseases to infiltrate the track, owing to the high humidity at that time of year.

He has done several test blocks around the track (nonracing area) to determine what are the best practices to prevent disease and protect root health.

“Some of the test spots have taken longer to recover than I would have thought,” he said.

“By that, I mean 17 days instead of 10.

“There’s nothing to worry about this week. I expect the track to race similar to what we saw last month.”

Staff will move the rail to the 2m position tomorrow and then shift it out to the 4m position after Saturday’s meeting.

The Eagle Farm track had been out of action for most of the past four years. It was originally scheduled for a rebuild in June 2014. It finally returned in June 2016 but the surface failed and the order came to rip it up 12 months later.