Racing: Outside barrier may assist Planet Rock

TAB bookmakers were impressed enough with Ashburton visitor Planet Rock winning at Ellerslie last start to have her the $3.50 favourite for Sunday's Karaka Million when the market opened yesterday.

The Peter and Dawn Williams-trained filly held a clear margin over Super Easy, who beat her home narrowly at Trentham two starts back on December 4.

Bookies have Super Easy second favourite at $5.50.

Both have drawn what look on paper to be awkward barriers, Planet Rock 13, who will come into gate 11 if just the emergencies are withdrawn. Super Easy has barrier No 15 and will start from No 12.

With the likelihood of the track being at least somewhat rain affected, outside barriers may prove to be an advantage.

Lee Freedman's Melbourne juvenile Chateauneuf Dupape has drawn gate No 5 and was quoted yesterday at $7.50.

John Sargent's Savabill, to be ridden by Sydney jockey Hugh Bowman, has drawn the outside gate of what will be 14 runners.

He is the TAB's third favourite at $10.

Horrors, the weather forecast for the weekend is again bad.

Both before the $1 million Karaka Million at Ellerslie on Sunday night and for the $200,000 Thorndon Mile and $200,000 Century City Wellington Cup at Trentham on Saturday.

Ellerslie might end up with the better scenario because the weather is meant to whistle through late Friday and most of Saturday.

"The biggest advantage we have is that we don't start racing until after 5pm on Sunday," said Auckland Racing Club racing manager Andrew Castles.

"Tracks at this time of year can dry very quickly, as our track did after the very wet 28th December raceday, and if we can get 18 hours of drying weather before we start racing Sunday evening the track will come back a long way."

Trentham may not be as lucky. The track yesterday morning was officially a slow 7, which means it will barely have time to get back to a reasonable state before the predicted weather strikes again.

Which is probably why the TAB bookies opened up Salvatore the $6.50 favourite for the Thorndon Mile when acceptances were taken yesterday.

November Rain is second favourite at $7, followed by The Meista at $8 and Fears Nothing and King Raedwald on $12.

Manawatu Cup winner Mr Tipsy is the $4.50 Wellington Cup favourite ahead of Showcause on $6, Innocent Lady on $10, He's Under The Gun $11 and Veloce Bella $13.

Yes, it's true that the Counties Racing Club has loaned the Avondale Jockey Club $2.75 million to pay off its debts.

Remarkable.

But it's only the start of the story.

It's a tale that has the potential to have an ugly ending.

On the surface the deal drips of benevolence - the mission statement issued to members by the Counties Club states it sees Avondale as a critical ingredient of the northern racing scene as a racing venue and, particularly, as a barrier trial venue.

Few will argue against that, but there are plenty of fishhooks.

One is, what if all the money is spent bringing Avondale back to an acceptable level - and that should take care of the $2.75 million - and Avondale cannot regain the racing licences it relinquished for the current racing season?

This column's official enquiries suggest that is a definite possibility.

Counties has a first mortgage on the Avondale land.

Surely if Avondale cannot race again and the money has been spent, a foreclosure would be imminent.

Counties would end up with the Avondale land.

Now, here's a question that isn't automatically answered in official circles - shouldn't money accrued by a racing club by whatever means, be deemed industry money, at least in terms of the industry having some say in how that money is used or dispersed.

If there is no legal obligation there, the Racing Act should be changed to allow for it.

A racing club cannot operate without the background funding, assistance and guidance of the various racing boards.

It cannot license itself.

Therefore its finances are linked to the industry itself.

Whether Avondale returns as a strategic part of racing should be an industry decision, not a racing club by racing club decision.

To use an old line, the industry itself is much larger than the sum of its parts.

Racing clubs are there merely to provide a venue.

The New Zealand Racing Board needs to guide direction here.

Maybe with its licensing it will. Classy jumps jockey Brett Scott has soon to make a decision whether he will come back as a jumps jockey.

The Melbourne-based New Zealander has been carrying several serious injuries and is walking with a limp.

The three-times winner of the world's richest jumping race, Japan's Nakayama Grand Jump, has not been on a horse's back since crashing in a hurdle race at Yarra Valley last October.

Doctors diagnosed a haematoma pressing on Scott's spinal chord.

"I'm struggling with strength and balance in my legs and feeling," Scott said.

"I've been told with nerve damage that you can't put a timeline on it - it might take a couple of months or it might take two years, and sometimes it doesn't come right at all.

"I'm just doing my best to get myself fit again and see what happens.

"I'm still scuffling around, I'm not not sure if the rods in my back are causing it," he said.

Surgeons inserted a titanium rod in his back to support his damaged spinal cord after a fall in a hurdle race at Warrnambool in 2003.

The injuries come at a bad time when officials have given the previously ailing Victorian jumps industry a seal of approval and an injection of several million dollars for next winter.