Fairview racing on Monday was abandoned after four races following a jockey protest over safety concerns, due to what is believed to have been 90km/h cross-winds which buffeted runners.
The red-hot Craig Zackey – now third in SA with 32 winners this term – and Gavin Smith partnered to win the second, third and fourth races on the card, after going second behind Richard Fourie and Kelly Mitchley in the opener.
The Zackey-Smith Pick 3 paid R27-10.
The loss of 50% of the racemeeting is a blow for local stakeholders, who have already seen the loss of Wednesday’s scheduled racemeeting at Hollywoodbets Greyville due to a lack of interest, in simple terms.
‘The wind went that way!’ Craig Zackey returns on his third winner, Cruzador (Pic – Pauline Herman)
In an unusual move by the Stipes, which takes forfeiting of objections to new heights, jockey Eldin Webber was hit with a R3 000 fine for what was deemed a frivolous objection when riding Mediteraneangodes in the third race.
Webber objected against Craig Zackey on Jambo Sana.
We await the Stipes report.
While we lost racemeetings in the UK today, and are not passing any judgement on the Fairview wind safety risks, it is interesting to read what Michael Guerin wrote in the www.nzherald.co.nz today.
That after the abandonment of their Hastings racemeeting on Saturday.
Guerin writes that the money matters, but it is not what matters the most. Racedays have been abandoned before and they will again.
From that perspective, the mess that was supposed to be the second leg of the Triple Crown meeting at Hastings on Saturday is not unique.
It is a story racing fans, but more importantly, those who work inside the industry, who depend on it to pay their bills, know all too well: track looks good, horses slip in one of the early races, jockeys walk track, meeting abandoned.
The horses and humans who cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to Hastings go home unhappy and unpaid.
That money matters.
The remains of the meeting now go to Matamata on Wednesday, hardly the ideal day of the week to host Group 1 and Group 2 races, and turnover will take a huge hit.
Entain and the TAB lose money, so does the industry.That money matters, but not as much.
Entain have turned up in New Zealand willing to spend cash to make a splash and it seems to be working. Racing felt alive again, until Saturday when it didn’t feel like anything at all.
Saturday’s slip-up (bad pun, but we could all do with a smile) won’t change the TAB’s bottom line all that much come the end of the season.
But the lovefest between the TAB’s new bosses and New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing probably wasn’t an exchange of text messages ending in love heart emojis on Saturday night.
So the money always matters, but it could have been worse.
After all, no human nor horse was injured on Saturday and that is the most important thing.
It is also a very low bar to find any joy in.
It is a bar too many industry participants have had to step over far too many times in recent years.
As one world-class trainer told the Herald yesterday when he heard of the abandonment, “I didn’t feel much at all, we are all so used to it happening.”
Such occasions, when dreams months in the making, are placed on the shelf maybe never to be taken down again, should not happen this often.
Yes, the Arrowfield will be run at Matamata on Wednesday and a watered-down version of Group 1 glory will be handed out, but the trainers who headed to Hastings had planned and prepared for just that. Hastings on Saturday.
Thoroughbred horses are the sports cars of the racing world. Finely tuned, they constantly live on a fitness tightrope.
There are horses going to the Arrowfield now who will not have had a proper gallop since last Tuesday.
Some of the 3-year-olds going for the Guineas are worse off. They already have the normal early-season question marks over whether they can extend to 1400m and now they will be trying that below peak fitness.
The reason is simple. Horses who spent four and a half hours in a float to get to Hastings, stood around for two hours then spent four and a half hours returning home needed Sunday off to recover – like a human would if they had travelled for nine hours standing up.
Those same horses might canter today but the reality is trainers are going into Wednesday confused and unsure, their horses out of whack, which means punters should be unsure too, even if they don’t know it.
And punters’ money really matters. Because they can gamble it elsewhere. Like casinos, or sports events which aren’t cancelled when somebody slips.
But none of those are the most important thing the New Zealand racing lost on Saturday.
It lost confidence that the industry will do what it says it will; hold races where and when they are programmed, months in advance.
It is annoying and frustrating, and everybody from club level to NZTR’s bosses, knows it isn’t good enough.
But most damaging of all, it no longer feels unusual. That matters.
