Racing: High level of anxiety for Te Rapa

Horse racing Avantage winning at Otaki-Maori 27 February 2021. Photo / File.

Te Rapa will prepare for one of its most important race meetings of the season this Saturday knowing it could be called off less than 24 hours before it is scheduled to start.

But chief executive Andrew Castles says if the crowd-less meeting does go ahead it could have at least one silver lining.

Horse racing can see the light at the end of the lockdown tunnel with the Government announcement the rest of the country outside of the Auckland region could return to Level 3 or better at midnight on Friday.

With horse and greyhound racing able to proceed at Level 3 if the regions like Waikato, Manawatu and the South Island drop down a level then New Zealand could host three thoroughbred meetings on Saturday with harness racing and greyhounds returning on Sunday.

The meeting sscheduled for Taupo on Wednesday and Ashburton on Thursday obviously won't be held but the Ashburton meeting will transfer to Saturday for a rare three-meeting Saturday.

"We are doing that because if any of the regions we intend racing in remains at Level 4 then we could still potentially have racing in the other regions," says NZTR chief executive Bernard Saundry.

"We are really hopeful of holding all three meetings but if, for example, only the South Island returns to Level 3 for Saturday at least we have some racing. "Like everybody we have to wait until the Government announcement on Friday."

Few in the racing industry will be watching that announcement with more interest that Castles, charged with hosting Saturday's star-studded card at Te Rapa.

Not only does the meeting have the first race of the season for the glamour gallopers like Avantage and Tavi Mac in the $100,000 Valachi Downs Foxbridge Plate but it now also hosts the $80,000 Cambridge Stud Northern Breeders' Stakes.

The group 3 three-year-old race was to have been held at Ruakaka last Saturday and would have drawn a good field this Saturday but with Taupo now cancelled on Wednesday it could attract some extra star three-year-olds.

"We are thrilled to be able to hold the race even though we feel for our friends in the north losing their meeting last week," said Castles.

"There were a lot of highly talented three-year-olds who were going to kick off their seasons at Taupo on Wednesday who now can't and some of them would fit into the Breeders' Stakes very nicely.

"So we are hoping we can provide an opportunity for some of them." That could include horses as exciting as Palamos, Doubtful Sound and Imperatriz, all of who have group one aspirations later in the spring.

For Castles and his team it is a case of prepare and then wait.

"We have to prepare like we are having a race meeting. We have to take acceptances, prepare the track and put all the security and tracing measures in place.

"That is, at least, easier now because we have a template from last year on how to do it.

"Obviously if we do race we are going to be doing so behind closed doors so we don't have to prepare for having the public here.

"We will be getting ready for a closed door meeting and hope that things are going well for everybody by Friday and we get to hold the meeting." The meeting becomes crucially important for the elite horses as the weight-for-age stars in the Foxbridge are not only at group two level but need racing to prepare for the group one Triple Crown riches that lie ahead at Hastings starting September 11.

And the three-year-olds also start to ramp up their season which gets even more serious at the three Hastings meetings as they prepare for the group one Guineas races at Riccarton in November.

One interesting area of interest for Saturdays three meetings will be jockey numbers, with three meeting Saturdays stretching the jockeys ranks very thin across the country as few jockeys will be travelling between regions.