Riccarton mud bath avoided as racing bosses get flexible

Lucy In The Sky is one of the best bets at the transferred Riccarton meeting. Photo / Race Images

Common sense has prevailed in a racetrack move that will prevent today’s Champagne Stakes being run on a Riccarton bog.

 The meeting scheduled to be run on the turf track at Riccarton will instead be conducted on the synthetic track inside the main track, with the $80,000 Berkley Stud Champagne Stakes to retain its crucial black type status.

 It is not the first time a Saturday meeting in New Zealand has been moved from a turf track to a synthetic track after acceptances, which would seem the reason synthetic tracks were installed at great cost in the first place.

 It is, of course, not that simple with some horses not as well suited to synthetic tracks while trainers of mudlark horses who would have been a better chance on a bottomless bog today will be annoyed.

 But the reality is with the soaking Christchurch has had in the past three days, today’s meeting would have struggled to be completed on the turf track and the quick change on Thursday was the best thing for the industry.

 Punters who bet into the meeting before the switch have had those bets refunded and the meeting was re-opened for betting with scratchings put back into the fields on Thursday night.

 What punters end up with is a meeting certain to go ahead while the trainers chasing valuable black type with their two-year-olds in the Champagne Stakes at least know they will have a fairer surface.

The Champagne Stakes remaining black type had to be approved by the Pattern Committee, the group charged with maintaining the quality of New Zealand black type racing.

 “The switch to the synthetic has to be a good move because I don’t think punters enjoy seeing horses trying to handle a Heavy 10 if they don’t have to,” says Cambridge trainer Tony Pike, who has Lucy In The Sky in the feature.

“Sure, it probably helps our filly because I was worried about the very heavy track but in reality we would have struggled to even run the whole meeting on the turf.

 “Taking my horse out of it I see no issues running a black type race on a synthetic track. You wouldn’t do it every week but I think all round the right decisions have been made for the industry.”

 Lucy In The Sky comes out of the Group 1 Sistema Stakes at Ellerslie last start so drops enormously in grade today and while her $2.50 price last night wasn’t enormous overs she could close significantly shorter today.

 Pike has a team of eight at Te Rapa today too and is confident of starting the day with a winner, he just doesn’t know which horse.

 “I think I can win Race 1 but I am not sure who is the better chance out of High Country or Poetic Justice,” he says.

 With the pair at boosted odds of $6.50 and $5.50 respectively smart punters looking for an early TAB account bump could do worse than backing them both.

 The Te Rapa meeting also holds a black type juvenile race as those opportunities start to run dry for the babies but it has a far more even feel, with a Karaka Millions runner like Toretto against those who have emerged over the autumn.

Across the Tasman there will be Kiwi flavour at both Eagle Farm (Queensland) and Morphettville (South Australia), with Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh having runners at both.

 Marsh has Roctave (R8, No.10) in the A$1million South Australian Derby while Tardelli, who was narrowly beaten against the older horses in the Easter at Ellerslie last start, contests the A$350,000 Queensland Guineas with Michael McNab to ride.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.