Abandonment adds to trainers’ difficulties

THE job of trainers preparing horses for Otago’s premier jumping races just got a lot trickier after it was confirmed the Great Western Hurdles and Steeplechase would not be run this season.

Ponding water on the Riverton track forced the abandonment of the club’s feature jumping meeting on Sunday.

Officials were left with no option but to abandon racing after heavy rain teemed down on what was already a very heavy track.

Riders whose mounts splashed in the water were unable to see in front on them in the two races that were held before the abandonment.

The tight national jumping programme was the major factor in the timehonoured Great Western Hurdles and Steeplechase races not being rerun.

Highweight and jumping races will be held at Avondale tomorrow and Hastings on Thursday.

‘‘It wasn’t going to work,’’ New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing operations manager Tim Aldridge said.

There are no more jumping races programmed in the country until the Otago steeplechase and hurdles meeting at Wingatui on June 2.

The only chance for contenders to have a hitout before then appears to be a rating 65 flat race at Wingatui this Friday.

If the addition of jumpers meant the race attracted a big list of starters it could possibly be split into two races, Aldridge said.

Jockeys voiced their concerns to officials after the first race was run at Riverton on Sunday.

They agreed racing could continue, but further heavy rain leading into race 2 caused the Riverton track to deteriorate further.

‘‘Just before the first race we started to get very heavy rain,’’ stipendiary steward Mark Davidson said.

‘‘The rain continued and they had got about 10ml in an hour. All it had done is full up the hoofmarks from the previous race and it started to pond on the track,’’ Davidson said.

‘’[The jockeys] were getting quite a bit of splashback and if you were in amongst the field you had no visibility.’’

Waiting for a break in the weather was an option considered by officials.

But track inspections made it apparent that racing on the track was an impossibility because of the surface water, Davidson said.

The two races that were held were won by trainer Kelvin Tyler and rider Kin Kwo.

The pair scored with Galway Garry and Lil Swiss Miss, who relished the condition of their waterlogged home track.