Racing club ropeable
Taranaki Racing officials are bemoaning a lack of communication that led to what they believe was the premature abandonment of its most popular winter meeting of the year.
The meeting, which was to feature the $100,000 listed Opunake Cup, was abandoned after stewards inspected the New Plymouth Raceway track early on Saturday morning and believed it was too waterlogged for the meeting to go ahead.
The stewards’ decision was at odds with Taranaki Racing chief executive Anna Duncan and the club’s board who felt the call was made too early given the significance of the meeting.
“If you look at last year, this was the biggest winter race meeting in the country, so there will be significant losses,” she said.
“It’s extremely disappointing and frustrating and we will be following through with this because communication is key and we don’t feel there was enough of it.”
Duncan said senior jockey Lisa Allpress had galloped a horse on the track before the stewards’ inspection and found there were no issues.
“She felt it was a good winter track. The stewards then walked the track and made their decision with limited consultation.”
New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing’s chief operating officer Darin Balcombe told Love Racing the decision to abandon the meeting was also made over concerns that the track was too deep to race on.
“The prudent call was to call the meeting off at that stage for horse and rider welfare, and the high possibility of visibility issues through the day,” he said.
“There is no greater drain on the industry than sending horses to the races and then everyone having to pack up and go home without a race. It costs a lot of money for the connections and for the industry, as we pay compensation to all of those connections.
“The good thing was that the decisions were made very early prior to anyone leaving home that hadn’t gone the night before, which was the best situation for us.”
Balcombe’s view was not shared by Duncan who also pointed to the fact the weather improved dramatically from late morning.
“In my opinion, I think we should have raced and I have the support of the [Taranaki Racing] board with that,” Duncan said.
“There is a cost involved if we have to call the meeting off after one or two races but we just felt it’s winter racing and you don’t get any slipping because the ground is heavy.”
She said the club was yet to add up just how much the abandonment had cost it and the situation was made worse because it could not hold the rescheduled meeting, at Hāwera today, because of a prior booking at its venue.
Duncan also felt for a number of race day sponsors, corporate table holders and supporters who could not make it to Hāwera because it was a weekday.
The abandonment also put paid to the club’s annual punters’ competition which had drawn record numbers.
“It would have been a huge day for our locals and the coastal Taranaki community,” Duncan said.