Racing: Top turf man told club of concerns

New Zealand's No 1 racecourse turf manager Neil Treweek says he warned the Counties Racing Club eight weeks ago that he had grave concerns about whether Saturday's Counties Cup meeting could go ahead.

Treweek wrote to the club after inspecting the Pukekohe track as part of the warrant-of-fitness inspections he was commissioned to give every track in New Zealand over the past three months.

The course manager for Te Rapa - where ironically the delayed Counties Cup was run yesterday - showed the Herald a copy of the letter at yesterday's meeting.

In it, Treweek said he was very concerned about the state of an 8m-wide strip of turf newly laid over a drain and spoke of "very poor grass quality".

He says he advised the club to re-turf the affected area by taking a section of grass from the 800m chute.

"It would have been the same soil, but they didn't do that. They persevered with what they had."

The club's chief adviser has been Dr Richard Gibbs, a former agronomist from the Turf Institute.

Treweek has always been sceptical about advice from turf experts outside the racing industry.

"When I was course manager at Wyong in Australia the club was looking to re-turf the course proper and pulled in a specialist turf company.

"I said to one of these guys that I had doubts and he said, "We've just re-turfed the Parramatta Stadium".

"I told him I'd take 10 horses to Parramatta Stadium and his re-turfing wouldn't last half an hour."

* Grant Cooksley was not entirely happy with the Pukekohe track when giving a professional judgment on the surface during the week.

A no-nonsense Cooksley was yesterday determined to get the story off straight.

"I galloped five horses. The first slipped a few times because there was a decent dew and the track was very firm. That wasn't significant.

"The next two galloped okay over the problem area, but they dipped.

"After I'd galloped them all, I said 'This is getting worse'. As each horse goes over it the dipping got worse.

"I don't know who is trying to blame who, but I gave a professional opinion and every decision after that was up to the so-called experts.

"We can only give an opinion."