Track quality is becoming an increasingly big problem across Australia.
Up here, Eagle Farm is a long way off following a big renewal of the surface, while Toowoomba has its problems.
The Kensington surface is plagued with issues and down in Victoria, Sandown Lakeside has problems. And that’s not all of the problems out there by a long way.
To explain what it means for jockeys and horses is as simple as saying the amount of grass cover will lead us to being able to race well and fairly, or not.
On a good consistent surface, a horse can get balanced. Your horses won’t dip and stumble, and they can gallop a lot freer. One analogy proposed to me was driving on a new cement road – smooth. A bad surface is like a road full of potholes that makes it dangerous to drive. Divots, holes, unevenness, and ups and downs in a track are dangerous for racing.
So what’s happening with our tracks? Certainly wall to wall racing doesn’t help. Tracks are galloped on a lot – not just Wednesday and Saturdays any more with racing on seven days a week.
Building new tracks to accommodate more surfaces to share the load is a huge expense and unlikely to happen.
Synthetic tracks are an option, but I don’t agree with them. It’s a surprisingly big expense and a full time job just to look after a synthetic track.
All the artificial tracks have to be watered, rolled, harrowed and maintained.
In Hong Kong, the team there would start work at 2am to get the tractor on the surface and bed it down.
They also require a huge amount of water – the more water the better essentially. It’s not something I can see working well here.
Eagle Farm’s renovation has been held up with red tape and government meddling and while there’s no doubt it will be good, it won’t be ready for the Winter Carnival up here and it’s a long way off coming right yet.
The Championships
Racing NSW and all concerned made the right call postponing the races until Monday.
I’ve ridden in torrential conditions and even with goggles you just can’t see what’s going on when a track has reached saturation point. I’ve been in that before as a jockey and it becomes a matter of looking after yourself and your fellow jockeys and horses, rather than truly being able to race.
There was some talk around how England don’t postpone a race unless a course is under water, but racing is a lot different over there. They race on differently shaped tracks and in a different style. There’s very few tight bends and they don’t race as compressed as we do, nor with the same speed. More races are staying tests that are strung out and on straights or big paddocks – that lets them avoid the problems we face here.
And the racing on Monday was top quality. It was great to see Chataqua winning the TJ Smith with that burst at the end, and Kermadec coming out to win the Doncaster after just missing in the Australian Guineas before.
I’m truly looking forward to the Queen Elizabeth (2000m). Adelaide is the one to watch – very few horses have attempted the Cox Plate and the Elizabeth in the same season with Tulloch the first back in 1961/62. It may be a path that’s more well trodden now given the prize money on offer. Even Red Cadeaux is skipping the Sydney Cup (3200m) to take a crack at the lucrative race.
Not that the Sydney Cup is too much worse off, with first and third from last year’s Melbourne Cup in the line-up. It would seem Racing NSW is justified with what they’re doing, and while some might say next weekend will be back to the same old problems, the higher you go the harder you fall. The whole idea is for that grand final of racing and they’ve done well.
Nick Hall
From the evidence presented it was the right call by stewards to award Nick Hall a cut of any prize money, if any, from To The World.
He appeared to have a firm booking on the horse in a race that’s worth a lot of money. It’s prize money that you want to be out racing for, not sitting in the jockey’s room. This isn’t a midweek maiden that they’re arguing about. I’ve no doubt he’d rather be on the horse than sitting on the sidelines though.
Joao Moreira
The ‘Magic Man’ didn’t have a Magic Monday at The Championships Day 1 but he’s a very good rider and he won well on Able Friend the next day in Hong Kong.
I was asked to explain what he does any different and while I’m not sure about some of the things I’ve been reading, he’s a cool customer and horses run for him. Other jockeys can be put on Phar Lap and they won’t win!
Moreira is a super jockey that puts his horses in the right place, and I’ve noticed he does sit very quietly on them.
Inglis Sales
I was amazed at the prices going through the Inglis Easter Yearling Sales this week. It’s in part due to the falling Australian dollar and overseas investors, but I was floored to hear they’d sold more than $100m of horseflesh in the ring.
I was most interested in the full brother to Sizzling, a horse I rode. Lot 264 was by Snitzel from the mare Admirelle, Sizzling was sold for $260,000 in 2011. His full brother just sold went for the top price of $2.2 million. It’s always deceptive on TV but he looked a little taller than Sizzling, and to be honest I would’ve been happy to just have been an underbidder on him.
Sizzling was a precocious type that dominated up here in Queensland in the Winter Carnival, winning Group 1s and other Group races, and won more than $1.3 million in just 23 starts. That’s still less than what his full brother sold for though! Good luck to Sheikh Mohammed who was the lucky one buying him.
Munce Stable update
We had a winner for one of the good people in racing with Lucky Black getting up last Saturday for Max Whitby. Lucky Black is a lovely horse and he really toughed it out after he was headed to get another metro winner and remain unbeaten this prep.
This weekend we saddle up Perplexity in Race 3 in Doomben and he’ll need a dry track as he prefers a firm footing, so we’ll be hoping for more sunshine.
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