Trainers race North for year's finale

TWO EXTRA races are on the card at tomorrow's final meeting for the Whangarei Racing Club this year.
The extra races as trainers clamour to line up on the Ruakaka track mean bigger betting pools , which boost Whangarei Racing Club profits, club manager Karen Houlihan said.
"The fields are huge ... it's really good for us. We were only going to have nine races, but we had to put on an extra two. There were so many horses wanting to race on our sand-based track," she said.
Wet weather and water-logged tracks around New Zealand over the winter have forced many trials and meetings to be called off, so trainers were anxious to give their horses a run on a good surface to kickstart their spring campaigns.
There will be plenty of first starters at the meeting, with nine of 11 races maidens, and there will also be plenty of local trainers represented, including Logan Racing Stables, Kenny and Lisa Rae, Brent Wells, Jean Pfersdorff, Alan Johnson and Michelle Marshall, who will start her horse Delegator for the first time after a spell in the Lion Red 1400m Rating 70 (Race 11).
The main race of the meeting is the Rating 70 1600m Carter Chippies Mile (Race 10) at 4.45pm with a $6000 stake, where several locally-trained horses will be starting among the maximum field of 14.
Tomorrow's meeting is the eighth staged at Ruakaka Race Track since the end of May and there have also been trials - the last on September 13, boasting 140 horses.
There is also the strong possibility of another set of trials next month, where young horses can qualify to start racing.
Despite the heavy demand from trainers to use the sand-based track over the winter, club officials are delighted with how well it has held up.
"We are looking forward to giving it a bit of a break from racing," Houlihan said.
"Paul 'Ace' Williams, who looks after the track, will give it what he calls a 'spring renovation'. It just needs a spruce up, smoothing out and replanting so we have a nice new surface for our summer festival meeting on January 5 - our biggest race day of the year," she said.
Race one gets under way at 11.40am tomorrow while the last race will be run at 5.20pm.