The abandonment of the Hollywoodbets Scottsville racemeeting today comes amidst devastating floods in KZN that have claimed 24 lives, with the province being battered by heavy rains since the beginning of March, causing some of the worst flooding in recent times, with torrential downpours leading to submerged roads, collapsed bridges, and power outages across several districts.
A decision was made earlier today to abandon the Hollywoodbets Scottsville racemeeting – originally postponed from Saturday 15 March – after the KZN Capital City track recorded 87mm of rainfall in the last 7 days, of which 22mm came down overnight.
Gold Circle’s Raf Sheik – managing the challenges to get racing on track (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Talking to the Sporting Post on Wednesday afternoon, Gold Circle Racing Executive Raf Sheik said that Hollywoodbets Greyville had received 103mm over the same period as the Pietermaritzburg course’s 87mm , and even after a few days of drying out was showing a pen reading of 30 at 10h00 today.
“We are very aware of the need to maintain momentum on the racing programme, but Hollywoodbets Greyville was not an option today, given the state of the track and the fact that we need to avoid damage to the surface as we have ten races carded on Sunday,” explained Sheik, who went on to explain that with the refurbishment of the polytrack, as well as sections of the roof and improvements to the parade ring, the saddling area and stables, amongst other items, that the City course resembled ‘a construction site’ at the moment.
“We also encountered an asphalt challenge with a portion of the polytrack. We are playing catch-up with the project, with mid-April a likely handover target. But the installation of drainage at around the 1000m marker has now meant that the ambulance track is also not accessible for a few days. Given the collective impact of all of these factors, it’s clear that an option of a switch was simply not viable today.”
Save the date – Friday 28 March is a night meeting at Hollywoodbets Greyville (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
In what will be welcome news for stakeholders, Sheik said that the 30 March Hollywoodbets Greyville turf meeting has now been brought forward to Friday 28 March under the lights, thus effectively reinstating a meeting that was cancelled recently.
“We have also added a Hollywoodbets Scottsville turf meeting to the now vacated slot on Sunday 30 March. While Mother Nature is not within our control, we want to assure all stakeholders that the short-term inconvenience will be well worth it. We will continue to monitor progress and provide updates, while looking forward to a good day of racing on Sunday,” concluded Sheik.
The Hollywoodbets Greyville racemeeting on Sunday 23 March commences at 11h40 with the first of ten races. The programme is headed by the Listed Kings Cup.
