Prep pays off as club picks up race dates
O¯ taki-Ma¯ori ready to step forward thanks to dedication and preparation from team
O¯taki-Ma¯ori Racing Club has been asked to stage two extra race meetings next month as both Hawke’s Bay and Awapuni racecourses undergo temporary repair.
The historic course, which was initially scheduled to hold just one race meeting in April, will now hold three meetings in that period in what is a boon for the club and local racegoers, as two of those meetings fall near public holidays.
The issue of track conditioning is under the microscope as the sports governing body New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) attempts to bring a halt to a string of costly abandonments due to track safety concerns.
So it begs the question, how is it that O¯ taki can hold so many race meetings in short time?
When asked how the course would fare with the increased workload, O¯ MRC course manager Kane Smith was confident the course would hold up well.
He scoffed at suggestions his team had found the holy grail for track preparation.
“I wouldn’t suggest that for a minute,” he said.
“In saying that we’re confident we can hold these meetings. The track is in really good order at present.”
Smith was aware that changeable weather, especially on a course sandwiched between the Tararua Ranges and the Tasman Sea, always had the potential to change track conditions dramatically.
“It can blow in quickly, and sometimes rain that is forecast can go around the hills and completely miss you,” he said.
He said the key was to be proactive and do everything possible to mitigate the effects of bad weather. There was no magic recipe, other than to invest time and money and be diligent in the maintenance of the racing surface to give it the best chance to hold up.
Always one to take counsel from those with more experience, Smith sets aside a period of time each year for the track to be ripped up and aerated to negate the effects of prolonged compaction.
“You’re always learning,” he said. Smith, a former jockey, said the OMRC ¯ committee was supportive in helping him with the resources he
needs. That included hiring a squad of part-time workers who walk the track from pillar to post after each meeting armed with rakes, manually replacing divots and filling holes with dirt that had been sieved and seeded.
“It can take a few days sometimes, but you can’t take shortcuts. You have to do it,” he said.
O¯ MRC general manager Ben Jamison said the club had increased its track maintenance budget considerably last season and heaped praise on Smith in pushing for more resources.
“He’s a perfectionist. He lives and breaths it,” he said.
“We raced on it recently and you wouldn’t even know, but of course you have to plan it carefully. If we take on too much it can turn around and bite you. But we are confident in Kane and the team.
“We bring in extra casual staff to help when it is needed and that seems to be part and parcel of the job.”
Jamison said O¯ taki had experienced abandoned meetings in the past.
“It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault. It was what we had to work with and we were just running on the smell of an oily rag. We have simply been able to increase our resources in that area — time and money,” he said.
Meanwhile, the next meeting at the Otaki-Ma¯ori ¯ course will be April 1 (Easter Monday). The Hawke’s Bay meeting featuring the $120,000 Hawke’s Bay Cup and $80,000 City of Napier Sprint will now be raced at O¯ taki on April 13. An Awapuni meeting on April 23 will move to O¯ taki.
The O¯ taki-Ma¯ori club’s own meeting that was set for April 12 would now be run at Woodville on that same day, a move that strengthens the argument for the retention of racing venues to share the load of racing, trialling and training.
Hastings is expected to be ready again for its next meeting on April 27.