Racing: Pukekohe's track embarrassment

Put any spin you like on Saturday's Pukekohe abandonment disaster, it should not have happened.

So the question begs - who takes responsibility?

The Counties Racing Club must take part of it, then you go to the stipendiary steward, Alan Coles, who passed the track fit for racing midweek.

Like the television ad says, "but wait, there's more".

The real culprit is the so-called turf expert company who came in and re-packed the track when the local council put long-awaited drains directly across the Pukekohe track, dissecting it on the bend out of the home straight, through the centre of the course and crossing the main track at the 600m, the point which caused Saturday's go-home meeting after race one.

According to Counties Racing Club committeeman Harvey Wadham, the turf experts suggested the original drain be packed with predominantly clay filling.

"It compacted so hard earlier this year. Then the winter rain caused a problem around the eight-metre diagonal strip because it couldn't get away.

"The so-called experts said we'll dig it up and fill it with sand."

Going from one extreme to the other clearly caused Saturday's problem.

You could pull 10cm-deep sections of turf off the track, as round as a family pizza, after the cancellation and beneath that was just sand, probably 15cm to 17cm deep.

Trainers Roger James, Lance Noble and Bruce Wallace inspected the site after the cancellation and voiced amazement.

"There should have been soil mixed with the sand," said Wallace, who runs a property development and building business alongside his thoroughbred interests. "Sand alone won't hold the roots of grass."

James: "You have to have the same sub-soil on both sides of the cut across the track, otherwise it just can't work."

Wadham said last week that 70 horses had galloped across the affected area - which riders in the only event raced across it on Saturday said was very dangerous.

The problem was clearly - and here is where Alan Coles has some get-out - that when the horses galloped over the questionable area early in the week it was very firm.

In an attempt to achieve a 2.2-rating track the club, with the help of highly respected Waikato Racing Club course manager Neil Treweek, watered as best it could with its sprinkler system.

What that caused over the affected area was a turf surface of perhaps 12-15cm deep that was a lot softer than when horses had galloped over it a few days earlier.

Because of that softness, this time they punctured it with their hooves and suddenly their feet were going in a further 20cm through no-resistance sand.

You don't need to be a genius to work out what happened at that point, I Rock My World's hindquarters dipped dramatically when he struck it wrong in race one and from that point there was hardly going to be a jockey that continued riding on one of the icon racing days of the year.

"You would have been okay if you hadn't watered the area," Wallace told Wadham.

"The so-called experts told us to water right up to raceday."

Before the cancellation, Matamata trainer John Sargent inspected the track with fellow trainer Jim Gibbs.

"Look, before I saw it for myself I was prepared to say riders are gutless - after seeing the problem I declared none of my horses were starting," said Sargent.

Gibbs said his $100,000 Counties Cup favourite Kerry O'Reilly would definitely not be running.

"It's disgraceful that this could happen," said a sombre Gibbs.

Sargent: "People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to race horses. This is bloody disgraceful."

The obvious question had to be asked - why was a barrier trial meeting not held on the course?

"Because we wanted to protect the racing surface," said one committeeman.

* The late Gordon McVeigh managed the Ellerslie track for decades.

He was regarded as one of the world's finest managers and regularly produced a racing surface you could dance a ballet on. He had no time for professional turf experts.

"They do a great job with football fields and bowling greens," he used to say, "but they always forget humans weigh 100kg and horses weigh 500kg."