KEY POINTS:
Racing is set to return Pukekohe after an absence of six months.
A trials meeting of 19 heats was conducted on the course on Tuesday in the presence of chief stipendiary steward Cameron George who last night confirmed the green light for a race meeting there on April 18.
The track had been troubled by a soft patch about 600m from the finish line but George said it was no longer a problem.
"The track played very well, it has the all clear," George said. "There had been some rain which made for a good test of the track.
"In the past the patch was very inconsistent with the rest of the track - it was a lot softer than everywhere else."
The last meeting held at Pukekohe was on October 24 and among the meetings transferred in the interim was the Counties Cup fixture in November which was held at Ellerslie.
The Pukekohe track has been plagued with problems in recent years.
In 2005 the Counties Cup meeting, the first for a year at Pukekohe, was abandoned after one race over concern with the same patch of the track. And a month earlier a meeting was cancelled the day before when concerns over the track were raised.
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Waikato Stud has tripled the service fee of top sire O'Reilly to $60,000 for next spring.
Last spring, O'Reilly stood for $20,000 and he had 15 different stakes winners. So far this season, he has had a Melbourne group one win with Master O'Reilly in the Caulfield Cup and two group one wins with Alamosa in New Zealand.
O'Reilly would be restricted to 100 mares outside of breeding rights held by shareholders.
The 100-mare restriction is to also apply to fellow Pins, whose fee remains at $50,000.
- NZPA
