Oamaru meeting called off
A HEAVILY saturated track has forced officials to abandon the Oamaru Jockey Club’s July meeting.
The race day was to be held tomorrow, after it was postponed from its original scheduling on Sunday.
Racing Integrity Unit and club officials met yesterday to inspect the track, which they deemed unfit for racing.
Although the majority of surface water that lay over the track from Friday night had cleared yesterday, there were still extremely wet patches where water had pooled.
Those areas were so wet and flooded that racing tomorrow was deemed an impossibility, stipendiary steward Mark Davidson said.
‘‘It’s improving on 80% of the track, but there are still a couple of patches where it is under water and there is nowhere for it to drain away even with two days without rain.’’
Course manager Greg Stuart previously told the Otago Daily Times that after a wet two weeks prior to the weekend’s storm, the water table beneath the course was ‘‘full to the brim’’ and surrounding areas had already seen flooding
Davidson formed a similar opinion when he inspected the track two weeks ago.
‘‘One of the areas that’s wet was one that I walked through about two weeks ago. This is before they even got the rain; it was under water then and it just hasn’t dried.’’
New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing has added only one extra race to Timaru’s Friday programme to help cater for horses missing starts at Oamaru, racing operations manager Tim Aldridge said.
A 2100m rating 65 event has been tacked on to Timaru’s eightrace programme. That meeting would need the a green light from racing officials who would be inspecting the Phar Lap Raceway track this morning, he said.
That is likely to leave Accidental Offside, Elfee, Flying Ibis, Lord Sibsford, Luke, Madam Libre, Miss Three Stars, Princess Brook, Strolling Vagabond, Timy Tyler and Twoznotenough without a leadup race in the South Island before the Winter Cup at Riccarton on August 5.
However, the lower rated of those horses could line up over 1200m or 1600m in rating 75 company at Timaru.
Kelvin Tyler has his team stationed at the Oamaru track and has topweight Hayley Maree aimed at the Winter Cup alongside Lochan Ora and Timy Tyler.
Hayley Maree has been affected by the flooding of the Oamaru track as she has missed a key gallop in the leadup to the Riccarton feature.
The silver lining for the connections of southern horses is that the juicy stakes the Oamaru Cup day was to offer have not been lost.
NZTR plans to fit the races into its new season schedule, Aldridge said.