New Year’s Day races abandoned

An unsafe track has ended the New Year’s Day race meeting at Waikouaiti with just one of the scheduled eight races completed.

Racing Integrity Unit stipendiary steward Mark Davidson confirmed a jockey in the opening race had reported their horse had slipped near the 800 metre mark.

The second race was delayed to allow a track inspection but the meeting was abandoned shortly after. Stewards, along with jockey, trainer and club officials undertook the inspection.

Davidson said there was evidence of half a dozen slip marks. ‘‘Clearly there was quite a few horses who have moved or slipped on the turn,’’ Davidson told Trackside TV. Davidson acknowledged the decision to abandon the meeting would not go down well with everyone but reiterated jockey and horse safety had to be the priority.

‘‘Obviously that’s not ideal but we can’t put the riders and horses back out there because we can’t guarantee their safety.’’

‘‘Not everybody will go home happy but everybody will go home safe,’’ Davidson told Trackside TV.

Around 7mm of rain had fallen at the track on Sunday but Davidson, along with other stewards and jockeys had walked the track on Sunday evening and on Monday morning and all agreed the dead 4 surface was likely to be a ‘‘perfect racing track’’.

Monday’s abandonment was bitterly disappointing for the crowd, that was understood to have been several thousand strong, the Waikouaiti Racing Club and New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR).

‘‘It is disappointing with the huge crowd they have had here today,’’ Davidson said.

The New Year’s Day event is the club’s only meeting of the season. The meeting is unlikely to be rescheduled.

The first race was won by the Michael and Matt Pitman-trained Pipiana ridden by Sam Wynne. With 2017 a year that was plagued by regular abandonments, a meeting being lost on the first day of 2018 was not a start to the year the thoroughbred code could afford.