“A key component to that is verti-draining it a few days before the race to break up the soil just below the top level. We did that on Wednesday.
“It will continue to get better and we will learn more about it but I am confident we won’t have the issues we had.”
Today’s meeting could be a near-perfect test case for that if the showers that hit Auckland yesterday come and go today, but even with the rain that has fallen Fulford has irrigated this week, that is how thirsty the StrathAyr surface can be.
“I think with the rain and irrigation it might officially come up a Soft 5 but it will be more like a Good 4.”
While Fulford is feeling confident about today’s meeting, trainer Roger James isn’t so convinced about the winning chances of Orchestral, who resumes in the race of the day, the Open 1400m at 4.05pm.
Orchestral has won a Karaka Million three-year-old, Avondale Guineas and NZ Derby at Ellerslie but is racing well short of her best distance today and while James acknowledges she can win, he won’t lose any sleep if she doesn’t.
“It is short of her best and she is still coming up,” he told the Herald.
“But it has also been a difficult spring with her. She is still growing but has yet to really fill out.
“So her preparation has been a little patchy and her appetite has come and gone a bit.
“She has been better since she won her jump out there [Ellerslie] last week but she is still very much on the way up.
“So as long as she is charging at the line late we will be happy.”
That is hardly inspiring for those considering taking the $2.15 the bookies are offering today but Orchestral could simply blow her opponents away, or one of those fitter or better suited to the 1400m than her could sneak a few lengths on her at a crucial stage and she might rush at them too late.
She might be the best horse in the country but a four-year-old mare carrying 60.5kg in an open handicap in September?
That equation suggests her price doesn’t represent as much value as Nereus (R2, No 2) earlier in the programme who is fitter and racing at a distance closer to its optimum.
Auckland double down
Auckland racing fans are in for a rare double helping of racing today after Alexandra Park’s Group 1 meeting last night was called off because of track issues.
Heavy rain saw rutting develop in a section of the track on the home bend, not uncommon on harness racing tracks because of their steep camber.
The water running down from the top of the track can cut into the surface and those holes can widen and deepen as water from subsequent rain finds its way to the same areas.
Track officials did all they could to protect against the issue, rolling and sealing the track on Friday morning, but the decision to delay the meeting was made for safety reasons.
The meeting, which features the return of Merlin in the Spring Cup and the Group 1 Caduceus Club Classic for two-year-old fillies, will now be held on Saturday night.
All bets already placed on final field markets or the tote have been cancelled and refunded even though the meeting will now go ahead with the same fields tonight.
The first race tonight will be at 5.17pm, just 37 minutes after the last at Ellerslie is run less than 2km away.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
