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The Roar

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MUNCE: Good Friday's break from racing is under pressure, but we look forward to it

Rain can make for a better sporting spectacle, but inclement weather can decimate a crowd.
Expert
3rd April, 2015
3

There’s talk every year about the lack of horse racing on Good Friday. As it is, there’s only two days of the year when we get a break in the racing industry: Christmas Day and Good Friday.

The talk centres on the fact that racing is entertainment, and Good Friday could indeed be a day for the punters. The racing industry does revolve around the punter, the TAB, and the tracks.

But to be honest, the racing industry looks forward to just having a day off like Good Friday. We still have to look after the horses and care for them, making sure they’re fed and worked and the like, but it’s a small break from going to the races.

Punters don’t want a day off but they aren’t at the coal face which never stops.

You used to hear trainers saying they hadn’t had a day off in ten years. Thankfully, that has changed. Leading trainers know they need to get away from it to come back with fresh ideas.

Gai Waterhouse takes two breaks around June and Christmas and has some time-off. Chris Waller takes a break, as does John O’Shea. Training is strenuous, both physically and mentally, and it’s important to freshen up.

As a jockey I used to try and time a break around the kids holidays somewhere in June and July, and given the proximity to home, the Gold Coast’s Magic Millions carnival was one where I could bring the family along. They took a break while I went to work – almost a bit of a working holiday – and having them close-by helped me to concentrate on winning which I managed three times.

Other jockeys like Jimmy Cassidy work to their own schedule. Jimmy understands his body and takes time out when he needs it to recuperate and ride at the top level when he comes back.

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Hong Kong’s model of a seasonal break is an interesting one, and as much as it is a great idea, it wouldn’t work in Australia.

Hong Kong’s long break is very good – it works well, given the limitation on the number of horses over there and the way it is all run. The horses over there stay in a box most of the time and get out to the Beas River when they can. The break lets the trainers get away to refresh and the horses are given a break – just walked and looked after rather than pushed.

Can you imagine if racing took anywhere near the weeks off that Hong Kong does? It seems like a great idea, but even just a coordinated single week off over a time like Christmas would be chaos. There’s always an important carnival, a feature race on somewhere, there’s just too many horses, and it’d be too difficult to plan around and create more problems than help anything.

As it is, two days off is about the maximum we can afford. And there’s no need to change that, just yet.

This weekend

To the racing this weekend, I’m looking forward to The Championships. It’s a great weekend’s racing across both weeks. People might be a little bit depressed when it’s raining and there’s talk of one day moving the dates forward or backwards to avoid the weather each year. I say you just have to push through it; it’s the same for everyone. Changing the dates simply risks copping the rain at another time.

My tip for finding a winner is to keep a watch on the Godolphin stable. They’re just the number one stable at the moment, and I don’t doubt we’ll be seeing more Royal Blue winning big features.

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Our horses
As for my own horses, we were all a bit displaced by Wednesday’s metro racing being called off up here in Queensland and it doesn’t look promising for Saturday either. Missing planned race days can hurt our horses fitness, and with tracks closed to trackwork we can’t get hard work into them. It can really put preparations behind.

Having said that, my bloke Wicked Intent is back, with a nice jump-out on Monday.

He’ll start his campaign in the Ken Russell Memorial (1200m) and take the usual two-year old route to the Group 1 TJ Smith (1600m) up here, provided he can run mile.

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