By MIKE DILLON
The Auckland Racing Club is confident it has fixed the problem which has horses slipping as they leave the barrier from three starting points at Ellerslie.
For the past four weeks the club has been plagued by having horses mysteriously slipping from the 1200m, 2100m and 2200m starts.
Seven or eight horses completely lost their winning chance at the start of races at the two early December meetings, and well-fancied Te Akau Dancer slipped badly when leaving the gates in the $50,000 Newmarket Handicap on Boxing Day.
Thursday's meeting started badly after juvenile Tochango had his hopes extinguished when his hind legs collapsed under him as he went to leave the gates in the opening race, the 1200m $20,000 New Zealand Bloodstock Debutante.
Two races later from the 1200m start, Miss Pollyanna slipped and stumbled so badly she nearly fell in the first two strides, being held upright only by cannoning into the horses either side of her.
Her rider Mark Sweeney considered himself lucky not to end up on the track.
In the same race, Michael Walker's mount Bahamian slipped and so did Dulcetto, the ride of Peter Johnson.
"They can't seem to get any footing at all coming out of the gates at that barrier," said Walker.
With the biggest sprint of the year, the $250,000 McDonogh Stakes to be run from the 1200m starting point on Monday, ARC officials have understandably been worried.
But they are confident an application of sand on the track will provide the surface with the desired purchase.
"It's been a complete mystery," said ARC chief executive David Lloyd.
"We had a couple of instances of this a year ago and then it disappeared."
In an attempt to overcome the problem, Ellerslie course manager Paul Williams has used a vertidrain, a machine which slices through the surface of the track.
"We have criss-crossed the area where the stalls are placed at each starting point," said Williams.
"We did it before the Boxing Day races and we did it again on Wednesday."
That appeared to solve the problem at the 2100m and 2200m starts, but the 1200m was as badly affected on Thursday as for any previous raceday.
"The thing that is mystifying is that there is not even the slightest suggestion they are slipping on the bends," said chief stipendiary steward Noel McCutcheon when co-trainer Jim Gibbs asked to view the start after his horse Tochango spread himself.
Riccarton had a spate of similar trouble last year, which seemed to disappear after a vertidrain was used.
The ARC even called in long-time Ellerslie course manager Gordon McVeigh, who intimately knew every blade of grass during his 40 years with the racetrack.
"Gordon couldn't come up with any reason why this is happening," said Lloyd.
Racing: ARC confident of getting off to a good start
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