Country course ready to roll
With the revamped Durbanville racing surface due to be unveiled to the racing public next Saturday, we spoke to General Manager Racing Dean Diedericks about the current state of affairs.
He is happy enough with the way things are looking at the Country Course. “Things should go fine as long as the weather plays ball. We need lots of sunshine to enable the recently laid turf to grow and take deeper root. Obviously you can never be certain how things will pan out until we have a couple of meetings out of the way but I am feeling confident,’’ was his assessment.
The weather forecast for this week suggests he should have his wish granted, with very little possibility of any precipitation predicted.
During the month we race at Durbanville, Kenilworth will be prepared for the coming Cape feature season. The two week delay in going there has placed severe time constraints on this process though.
‘’With only four weeks and not six to work with I will only be doing a light spring scarification or verti cut. We also need to sort out the drainage issue at the 2000m mark, which is the lowest lying part of the course’’. (Note - this often leads to races over this distance being changed to 1900m when a lot of rain falls.)
The area where all three courses come together about 800m from home is the only part of the track used for every race, and presents another problem.
‘’The crossovers are quite high due to plenty of divot fills over time and need to be flattened out,’’ was the way Dean summed it up. If you watch a race around the turn at Kenilworth on Wednesday, watch how the field visibly rises as they enter this area to get a feel of what he is talking about.
Once we return to Kenilworth on 21 October the real long term work will begin at Durbanville. A heavy scarification and top dressing will be carried out on what will remain an ongoing project for some time to come.
One thing is for certain both our Cape courses are certain to provide excellent racing surfaces for the foreseeable future.