Eagle Farm Racecourse in Brisbane. Photo / AAP
Does anyone notice something missing in the Eagle Farm track debacle - like no one putting their hand up to claim responsibility.
Most of the criticism is aimed at Brisbane Racing Club chairman Neville Bell and his CEO.
But their only involvement was finding the A$10 million to fund the replacement of a track that was not ideal, but usable, into one that is totally unusable.
Someone must be responsible. A racing club does not spend A$10m by giving a contract like that to a gate staffer.
A gigantic calamity Eagle Farm has come up with would not be tolerated in any industry. And make no mistake, thoroughbred racing is an industry, a billion dollar industry. That "someone" has to come forward to be publicly identified. Much more important is revealing exactly what went wrong.
Putting down a new track is not brain surgery. There are so many successful case samples worldwide to follow.
Hong Kong's Sha Tin is one of the world's best. It can take 50mm of rain and run near track record times with a few hours of clear weather.
A decade and a half back the track of the Melbourne Cup home, Flemington, was disgraceful. It is now one of the best anywhere. You wonder if those, or the person, responsible for Eagle Farm's re-design asked for advice from Hong Kong or Melbourne.
The A$10m will likely end up being less than half the total cost of righting the ship. The club announced midweek, the Stradbroke/Derby meeting next Saturday and the Tatts Tiara meeting the following week are both to be at Doomben.
The much smaller surrounds of Doomben do not allow for the total hospitality packages to be accommodated. They are traditionally lavish at the winter carnival and the revenue downturn is disastrous.
The club announced yesterday Eagle Farm will be closed indefinitely.
No definitive term was declared, but hints were at three to six months and possibly until after the Magic Millions meeting at the Gold Coast track in January.
That is total disaster. The Doomben surface would suffer massive damage if it had to encompass all of Eagle Farm's dates, even if some of Doomben's own midweekers were transferred to Ipswich, which happened this week.
This column has never been a fan of synthetic racing surfaces, but giant strides appear to have been made. If you missed the debut performance of the new "dirt" track at Canberra last weekend, make sure you catch one of the next few times it races.
It was announced the club had "done it entirely themselves at a cost of A$2.2m". Without a definition of exactly what "done it all themselves" means, that is a budget cost for a track that raced perfectly all day.
Synthetics have traditionally tended to set up a bias, generally an on-speed one, but for no accountable reason that can suddenly switch to making it impossible to be in the first half of the field.
Traditionalists will call that tempo-related. When you clock the sectionals that has not been the case.
Canberra raced very fairly, the first two leaders winning, the third came from three wide without cover throughout. Importantly, the well backed horses were getting into the major money - invariably a sign a track is racing fairly. Cranbourne is another synthetic that is an improvement on what came before.
They have their place.
What we saw at Eagle Farm last Saturday doesn't.
• Unusually for a track we are going to see at Ellerslie today there should be some short-priced favourites winning this afternoon.
If not, be prepared to see some long-priced exotic results.
It will be a surprise if Tomelilla does not open the card at tight odds. She fought back bravely under 57kg to secure her second win on end here last week and with the Baker/Forsman stable able to keep their horses on the up, she should back up. The Tavistock mare goes up a grade, but this looks within her range. Her stablemate Arzak and Meritaggio look the threats.
Fire Jet (No4, R2) should go close. He was having just his second start this prepartion when just beaten last week and on a seven-day backup should be that much fitter this time. Close Up (No1) is the class act in the field, but he has to lump 60kg topweight and the 6kg he has to concede to Fire Jet is a tough assignment. Battle Time (No3) has the class to be right in the finish.
Deals In Heels (No4, R3) needs only to produce a run close to her unbeaten pair of performances to make it a treble. She looks to have extraordinary potential and what beats her will win. Dynamic Eagle (No1) is the danger if there is one.
Break My Stride (No4, R4) should be another 'shortie' who can go close. She showed plenty of ticker to win last week.
Ekarosa (No4, R5) is better than her overall form rates. The best value all day could be Playboy Prince (No1, R7). Put his last-start failure down to the second-up syndrome.