By MIKE DILLON
The future of New Zealand's heritage-rich jumping game is starting to look dodgy.
Saturday's $20,000 Ashwell Farm Hawkes Bay Steeplechase was yesterday scrapped because of lack of numbers and former Jumping Association president Ray Knight says racing administrators need to decide whether they want to continue with jumps races or not.
Knight sponsored the Hawkes Bay race and says while he understands the club's disappointment at getting only seven acceptors, the thought of a Premier Jumping event being axed appalls him.
"We have only five of them and it's a sad thing when we can't get enough runners."
Hawkes Bay Racing decided not to run the big race this weekend when only three open class horses and four novices were attracted to run.
"The thing that really upset me was that the club saw fit to say part of the reason the race would not go ahead was because Ann Browne was not supporting the race.
"The Brownes have traditionally not had many runners in the race and it's understandable why Ann has made her decision this year."
The four novice acceptors for Saturday's race can run in a steeplechase for their own class at the upcoming Trentham carnival for the same money and Knight questions how much the Hawkes Bay Club has supported the jumping game.
Knight says the axing has on-going implications.
"Does this put the Wellington Steeplechase in doubt?
"It's not far away and will that get enough runners.
"There is only one open steeplechase between now and Trentham to get horses ready at and that's Te Awamutu.
"How many are going to run in both of those. It's fair to say Te Awamutu and Trentham are different courses."
Knight says clear direction needs to come from the top.
"The worrying thing is that a major jumping event can be scrapped three days out from raceday when trainers put horses into work for these races two years out.
"The racing bosses need to decide whether they want jumps racing and if the answer to that is yes, they need to produce the funding to give trainers confidence to start schooling horses.
"We put a lot of effort into guiding the jumping game and clearly what we did hasn't worked.
"New strategies are needed and they need to be clear guidelines."
Knight says the worrying feature is that Saturday's disappointment comes only four weeks after what he describes as the absolutely raging success of the Ellerslie jumping carnival.
"Clearly we have a shortage of horses at the upper levels, that's no secret, but the newly designed hurdles will bring more horses into the game and the more you get in at the bottom, the more that rise to the top. There's no magic in that.
"In any industry people can make difficult things work and viable things fail, depending on the amount of effort you put in."
Racing: Axing of jumps feature worry for supporters
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