Outside rail for Riccarton track

Press, 11 July 1989, Page 33

Outside rail for Riccarton track

By

DAVID McCARTHY

An outside rail from approximately the 1000 m mark to the Carriage Paddock Brush will be erected at Riccarton to resolve the problems experienced at recent meetings with horses running very wide on the course proper.

There will be a break in the rail at the foot of the 1200 m junction so that sprint and hurdle events will not be affected. The inside rail, at present out some 3m from its summer position, will be returned to that position with the result that there will be a track of ample width and good footing available for the Grand' National meeting beginning on August 5. Autumn and early winter rainfall, on areas heavily irrigated over the summer, has made the inner section of the

course proper heavy and riders have been seeking a strip of firmer ground wide out on the track in order to gain an advantage in the straight. The strip has been sought after for some years at winter meetings but has not previously played a role as early as this year when the May meetings were affected. In order to gain access to the firmer strip, hardened by the use of motor vehicles over the years, riders have been getting wider earlier and earlier in their races.

At the Christchurch Hunt meeting horses were running on the outside of the course proper surface by the 1000 m mark and some were slipping over the track banking at that point. Horses have been running up to 100 m further than the official distance of the race in these circumstances. “The Canterbury Jockey Club is taking steps to eliminate the problem in the long term with a wider spread of the irrigation system and improving drainage on the inner part of the track but

those solutions will take time and the Grand National meeting 'is almost upon us,” said the Canterbury Jockey Club chairman, John Austin, in announcing the innovations. “The racing conditions we have been experiencing are hazardous and potentially dangerous.” The change, which was discussed with senior riders, trainers and officials, will keep the fields inside the firmer strip giving equal footing to all, right across the available track surface.