Covid 19 coronavirus: The show goes on for horse racing but Ruakaka meeting lost to travel restrictions

Ruakaka, seen here with local star Prom Queen winning, is usually a winter racing stronghold but its meeting this weekend has been cancelled because of the travel restrictions. Photo / Race Images

The racing industry is set to race on around most of the country during the new Covid alert levels, with the exception of Saturday's Ruakaka meeting.

The meeting would have been the return of racing to Ruakaka since the industry was halted by the first lockdown in March, but the logistics of holding the meeting eventually made it impossible.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing initially tried to buy the meeting time by transferring it from Saturday to Sunday, but it was cancelled last night because of concerns around getting the TAB staff needed to service and broadcast the meeting, as well as many industry participants and horses north.

Ruakaka has a solid horse population but not enough to hold an entire meeting and the travel restrictions through Auckland meant not only could horses trained in that region not travel to Ruakaka but neither could horses from the Waikato.

"We are disappointed to lose the meeting and for the locals but we didn't have any other option because of the travel restrictions," said NZTR chief executive Bernard Saundry.

NZTR will likely programme a replacement meeting in the horse-rich Waikato region next week, almost certainly on Wednesday, but if Level 3 is still in place in the Auckland region by then horses from north of the Bombay will almost certainly be excluded.

That leaves two thoroughbred meetings this week - Waverley on Friday and Riccarton on Saturday - while the Cambridge harness racing meeting which was to have been held tomorrow night has moved to Saturday starting at noon.

Harness Racing New Zealand have had to set up an unusual set of contingencies for that meeting as they do not know if horses trained north of Bombay will be allowed to compete.

At this stage the whole meeting has simply moved, meaning the same fields that were going to race on Thursday night will race Saturday.

But if, as many people expect, the Auckland region's restrictions remain over the weekend then horses from there will be scratched and HRNZ will have in the background compiled an idea for a new meeting using only horses from south of Bombays.

"That isn't ideal but it means if the Auckland region horses can't start we can have a smaller meeting with the local and Central Districts horses," says HRNZ's Darrin Williams.

"We can't just scratch the Auckland horses because then we would end up with 11 races but some very small numbers in some of them. That call will be made Friday."

All race meetings around the country will be run as workplaces with only essential racing industry personnel permitted but both codes are confident racing and training will continue at both Level 2 and Level 3, which would mean Alexandra Park could still race next week because there are enough horses in the region to hold a meeting.

*** Superstars Catalyst and Avantage gave racing fans at least something to smile about when they dazzled in the two star-studded trials held before the Taupo meeting today.

Catalyst showed improved barrier manners to win his 1100m catchweight heat and heads to Sydney next month while Avantage was very strong in the closing stages of her heat to beat Supera and races at Te Rapa on September 5 before heading to at least the first two Group 1 races at Hastings.