Racing bosses aren’t ruling out a total overhaul of how tracks are managed after the embarrassment of one of New Zealand’s biggest race meetings being canned on Saturday.
The last nine races of New Zealand Cup and 1000 Guineas day, which was to be held in front of a 15,000- strong sell-out Riccarton crowd on Saturday, had to be transferred to Monday after a horse slipped in race three. That raised concerns about track safety, particularly at the top of the straight, and racing was halted.
Riccarton will now hold the rest of its biggest meeting of the season in front of a small crowd, and with Monday being the poorest turnover day of the week, the change will hit the industry hard.
Canterbury Jockey Club boss Tim Mills was devastated by the fiasco but says the investigation into how the track became slippery after a week of almost exclusively fine weather will have to wait.
“We understand everybody’s frustrations and our team are feeling it worse than anybody,” says Mills.