Racing: Cancellations irk trainers

Many trainers want a different approach taken to track maintenance so that meetings won't be interrupted.

Thoroughbred trainers are insisting urgent moves need to be made on the issue of producing racetracks safe for racing.

The Herald highlighted yesterday the issue of tracks being presented unsafe, highlighted by Awapuni on Saturday, which extended the meetings lost to racing since August 1 to 11.

Estimates of the financial loss to racing of those losses depends on who you talk to.

Six to seven million dollars (in 16 weeks!) is conservative.

Before we start, some of the resolutions are lost in the murk of bureaucracy.

But the financial health of racing is reliant on someone, some body of people, needing to take this seriously.

Nigel Tiley weighed in, so did equally high-profile trainers John Bary, John Wheeler and Tony Pike.

Hastings' John Bary highlighted the urgency: "I called Thoroughbred Racing last week and said 'is there anything in the wind, and I'm talking weeks not months because this is getting critical?'.

"The rails are being moved too much and there is too much watering.

"And, there is no accountability. The feedback is the problem goes back to the Racing Board, not NZTR. The tail is wagging the dog."

Nigel Tiley was a champion jockey here, a topliner in Sydney and Hong Kong, who trained the Derby winner at Ellerslie in his first season of returning to New Zealand. His opinions need little scrutiny.

"I know we all have opinions, but I strongly believe, and always have, that course propers on all courses should be used on a regular basis.

"In the middle of winter that's not applicable, but on decent tracks run a few horses around them with experienced jockeys on them and you would then know if you had issues with certain parts of the tracks.

"If half a dozen horses had gone around Awapuni during last week good riders would have been able to point out any problem areas.

"Ellerslie's a good track, we all know that, but if there was a requirement for horses to gallop there on the odd occasion I'd have horses in a float the day before and stable them overnight on the course because it's a nightmare to get there early because of motorway traffic.

"If they asked anyone else, I'd head them off at the pass, that's how much I love Ellerslie."

That is not an idle quote from Tiley. "I've ridden in a lot of places, Hong Kong and Longchamp in France and Ellerslie is the best track I've ridden on.

"Whatever it takes to further promote Ellerslie as our showpiece, which it is anyway, I fully support. Put a StrathAyr track in as some have suggested and the industry should pay for it."

The Trainers Association head, Cambridge's Tony Pike, is not happy with the current situation.

"I had horses at Dargaville and Wanganui that didn't get to run. Those are expensive float trips from Cambridge.

"Financially, it is a critical time for trainers. If a young person were to try and set up training in Cambridge, the only option would be to rent the odd box here and there.

"Land prices are way beyond anyone's means.

"We cannot afford for our racetracks to be mismanaged."