Three days of racing at beautiful Ellerslie coming up and rest assured the track will be prepared as well as it is humanly possible. No, this is not a paid ad, it's simply a fact.
Essentially, every racing strip, whether it's in fact magnificent or fourth rate, looks pretty much the same. It's not until there is a problem that the real extent of the all-important racing surface is brought to light.
Ellerslie on Boxing Day will look magnificent, but little different to Avondale, Te Rapa and Trentham on the same day.
No racing club around makes more effort to produce the best possible racing surface than the Auckland Racing Club. "We are not saying Ellerslie is perfect and we know how hard it is for any club, but we will never stop trying to reach perfection," ARC chief executive Cameron George told the Herald. The secret, says the former chief stipendiary steward, is putting an annual track maintenance programme in place and constantly reviewing it.
"It's not appropriate to do it on a raceday by raceday basis. We sit down with our track manager Jason Fullford and go through every facet of track maintenance for the next 12 months based on his recommendations." Ellerslie is built in a basin and as such has unique wet weather issues to contend with. In a wet winter it dries slower than most racetracks and working with that is an enormous challenge for the ARC.