Wewillrock is at full stretch, under the urgings of apprentice Liam Kauri, on his way to winning an open 1200m race at Te Rapa on Friday.
OPINION
Hawke’s Bay Racing has lost its biggest race day of the year but the show will still go on.
The Livamol Classic race meeting, the mainstay of the Colliers Hawke’s Bay Spring Carnival, was to have been run on the Hastings track next Saturday but has now been transferred to the Te Rapa racetrack in Hamilton.
A media release from New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing on Tuesday said that, following the partial abandonment of last Saturday’s card at Hastings, a decision was made to move the Saturday, October 12 raceday and Group 1 Livamol Classic to Te Rapa.
It is a decision that has angered many and will have a devastating impact on Hawke’s Bay Racing, a club whose finances have already been hugely impacted following last Saturday’s partial abandonment of what would have been the second day of the all-important Spring Carnival.
But Hawke’s Bay Racing is determined to still make it a day of entertainment at the Hastings racecourse next Saturday.
A statement from the club said: “The good news is that Hawke’s Bay Racing is excited to announce the show will go on as planned by way of a phantom race day.”
It added that the intention is that all entertainment, hospitality, music and fashion in the field would continue as planned, but refunds would be available for guests who no longer wished to attend.
The New Zealand Punter of the Year competition will also still be held on course, with the races beamed in from Te Rapa, Ashburton and Australia on the big screen in the centre of the track and on the many television screens scattered around the course.
Other New Zealand racing clubs have successfully held similar phantom race meetings and Hawke’s Bay Racing hopes to make this one the biggest.
A spokesperson for Hawke’s Bay Racing said this week it was a chance for the locals to show the rest of the country that “we can still have a party atmosphere on the day even without the horses on course”.
The partial abandonment of last Saturday’s second day of the Colliers Hawke’s Bay Spring Carnival came about after a horse slipped going out of the straight in race one.
A delegation of jockeys, stewards and Hawke’s Bay Racing officials inspected the area concerned and several slip marks were clearly visible.
That part of the Hastings track does have a negative camber out wide, which can be accentuated when the running rail is moved out. The running rail had been moved out four metres from the first day of the Spring Carnival to preserve the inside for the expected third day of racing.
Course manager Bryce Mildon said it is also an area of the track that tends to compact more than other areas and 3mm of rain on Friday evening and a light frost on race morning contributed to that section becoming slippery on top.
Track staff undertook multiple steps to remedy the situation following the abandonment, with Mildon saying he put the Verti-Drain and another machine over the course the following day as well as some light irrigation and was confident it had alleviated the slipping problem.
He added that it was always the intention to bring the running rail back into the true position for the third day of racing.
The remedied surface was put to the test with 12 heats of jumpouts held up against the running rail on the course proper on Monday and they were run without incident.
Several Hawke’s Bay Racing officials were present at the jumpouts as well as New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing’s chief operating officer Darin Balcombe and TAB board member Jason Fleming. They made regular inspections of the track after each heat was run and the general consensus was the racing surface provided safe footing.
Senior jockeys Jonathan Riddell, Kate Hercock and Kavish Chowdhoory along with last season’s champion apprentice Lilly Sutherland were among the riders who competed in the jumpouts, with Riddell saying the surface felt safe and rated the footing just on the worse side of good.
NZTR’s decision to transfer the Livamol Classic meeting to Te Rapa has been seen by many as an overreaction given that Mildon and his staff had almost a fortnight to undertake any further work on the track if it was needed.
The racing surface for the first day of the Colliers Hawke’s Bay Spring Carnival, on September 7, provided perfect footing with glowing reports from jockeys, stewards and other participants.
The decision to transfer next Saturday’s race meeting from Hastings to Te Rapa endorses the thoughts of many that the powers that be within New Zealand racing would like to see more and more race meetings staged north of Taupō, to the detriment of Central Districts and South Island racing.
Ironically three former chief executives of Hawke’s Bay Racing, Darin Balcombe, Jason Fleming and Waikato Racing chief executive Andrew Castles, were involved in the decision to move next Saturday’s Group 1 Livamol Classic raceday from Hastings to Te Rapa.
Wewillrock adds to great Te Rapa record
Smart Hastings-trained sprinter Wewillrock returned to his best form with a dominant win in an open sprint at Te Rapa on Friday of last week and may now head back to the same venue for a Group 3 event next Saturday.
The El Roca six-year-old led all the way in a $50,000 race over 1200m, winning by three-quarters of a length in the hands of apprentice jockey Liam Kauri.
It was the horse’s eighth win from 23 starts and his fourth success from seven outings on the Te Rapa track.
Wewillrock is trained on the Hastings track by Guy Lowry and Leah Zydenbos with Lowry saying this week they will now consider running the big chestnut in the Group 3 $120,000 Valley D’Vine Spring Sprint (1400m) at next Saturday’s rescheduled Hawke’s Bay meeting at Te Rapa.
The only drawback surrounding Wewillrock contesting that race is that the bold front runner has never raced beyond 1230m but any easing track conditions would enhance his chances and rain is forecast for the Waikato region next weekend.
Wewillrock is owned by Waikato Stud’s Mark Chittick in partnership with Hawke’s Bay brothers Mark and Paul Apatu and has now recorded eight wins, four seconds and five thirds and won more than $330,000 in stakemoney.
Lowry sent the horse across the Tasman to Sydney in the winter of last year where he had four starts for a win and two minor placings, including a third in a stakes race at Randwick.
Dictation a jumping star in the making
The Hastings stable of Paul Nelson and Corrina McDougal continuously churn out top class jumpers and they look to have unleashed another one in Dictation.
The seven-year-old Tavistock gelding started a hot favourite for a $30,000 Open hurdle race at Woodville last Sunday and never let his supporters down, scoring a decisive 4-1/4 length win in the 3000m event.
It was the horse’s fifth win and his third victory from six starts over hurdles.
Bred by the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, Dictation is out of the Volksraad mare Solo and was purchased by Paul Nelson for $20,000 from the Gavelhouse auction site in 2022.
He is raced by the I See Red Syndicate, a large group of racing enthusiasts who have raced horses from Nelson’s stable for more than 20 years and have enjoyed tremendous success.
Dictation’s first two wins for the syndicate were in amateur riders’ races on the flat, when he was ridden by the now Hastings trainer Leah Zydenbos.
Woodville last Sunday was the last New Zealand jumps race meeting for the year, with the 10-race card featuring three hurdle races and two steeplechase events.
The jumping races provided a great spectacle for the patrons on course and were run mainly without incident. One horse lost its rider in the opening hurdle race while two horses were pulled up, when out of contention, in the open steeplechase.
Sharrock resigns as NZTR chief executive
New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing’s Bruce Sharrock has quit as chief executive and he will depart the organisation at the end of 2024 after more than two-and-a-half years in the top job.
Sharrock, who was appointed to the role in April 2022, will officially finish as CEO on December 31, but he will then stay on as consultant to NZTR for a further three months “to oversee the implementation of current projects”.
The timing of the confirmation of Sharrock’s resignation, coming days after the disastrous abandonment of last Saturday’s Group 1 Hawke’s Bay meeting at Hastings, may be a surprise to some but the fact he has quit shouldn’t be.
There have been murmurs for months suggesting that Sharrock’s tenure as CEO was nearing its end.
NZTR, in a statement released on Wednesday, said Sharrock had resigned “several weeks ago”, meaning his departure is unrelated to the track issues at Hastings which led to the Group 1 Arrowfield Plate meeting being transferred to Matamata and run on Wednesday.
The appointment of Entain by the Government to run the New Zealand TAB for 25 years, which came into effect last year, was made during Sharrock’s term as CEO and he has also overseen the implementation of numerous initiatives aimed at improving the appeal of the thoroughbred code, including the NZB Kiwi slot race, which is to be run for the first time next year.
NZTR chairman Russell Warwick commended Sharrock for his leadership during a period of transformational change within the industry.
“Bruce has played an integral role in navigating the business through some challenging times in recent years, guiding the industry through the pressures of the back end of the Covid-19 pandemic and repositioning the NZTR offices and functions from Petone to Cambridge being just two examples of his leadership,” Warwick said in a statement.
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