The local horse racing community was rocked by the news two weeks ago that Race Day scheduled for May 14 had to be cancelled due to complications arising out of the work being undertaken to remediate the sand track.
The circumstances leading to this incident is probably the most revealing aspect of the woes that currently plague the racing industry. It seems that although administration of the sport may change, the challenges that confront the quality of persons at its helm endure. Let's have a look at the chronology of events leading up to the debacle of two weeks ago.
Towards the end of the prior year (2015), a schedule of race days is issued by the competent authority (ARC in this case). During the first half of 2016, there were numerous complaints with respect to the quality of the surface and a re-grading exercise was undertaken during the first quarter of the year.
This exercise left many horsemen dissatisfied since it was felt (and proven true) that insufficient depth was reached in attempting to revolve the surface. The dissatisfaction was borne out by an increased incidence of injuries to racehorses. Clearly more remedial work was required.
Remedial work was planned to take place roughly two weeks before it actually took place but was cancelled due to unexplained reasons. The work was eventually re-scheduled for May 9-10. The expectation was clearly that the work would be completed in time for the race day on May 14.
On May 7, prior to commencement of work on the 9, during a discussion with the new CEO of the ARC–Stephen Lucas, the "hope" was expressed that the work would in fact be completed in time. During the re-grading, one of the tractors involved in the process broke down. It is not clear whether this occurred on Monday or Tuesday. Nevertheless on Tuesday, entries were taken for May 14.
here were five races scheduled for the main track and three for turf. On May 12, the ARC met with the relevant horsemen to ascertain whether they would be agreeable to shifting the races scheduled for the main track to the turf track. While the horsemen indicated some support, other players were not as supportive and in the final analysis, the ARC took the decision to abort the day's racing. The real issue is how could it come to that?
From Saturday before, the CEO was cognizant that there might have been some challenges in staging the racing. Maybe it was optimism, maybe it was ignorance but surely events should not have been allowed to unfold as though everything was normal. Remediation of the track was essential so no doubt had to be given some priority.
Once there was doubt, the ARC should have erred on the side of caution. There should not have been a trade-off however between the remediation and staging of racing. The job could surely have been completed in a few days so that brings into question, why the job was not completed within the expected time frame?
From all reports, the contractor engaged by the ARC to undertake the work used woefully aged equipment. Some experienced horsemen compared the equipment being used to that which might have been used in the 1990s. This may be an exaggeration but there is no doubt that the breakdown of the equipment suggests that it was fairly old because the job at hand was not particularly onerous.
This experience brings into clear spotlight the adverse implications for the ARC of its fallout with influential owners (and sponsors). In years gone past, prior to his fall out with the ARC over its handling of integrity claims, Junior Sammy, who owns the best and newest fleet of equipment easily capable of doing a job like this in hours, would have undertaken remedial work on the track almost gratis.
The ARC Parade Ring is still named in honour of one of his horses because he financed himself and completed the redevelopment of that site. Sammy's alienation from the sport, had, as one of its many consequent events, the humiliating developments of two weeks ago. Even so, the ARC could have done a better job in screening the individuals/equipment responsible for conducting the job.
Understanding the importance of timing, that job needed to be micro-managed by those at the track responsible for the project. That is resulted in this failure should have seen someone held accountable and the appropriate action taken. It is only when those with responsibility are held accountable that any real progress will be felt.
In the end, it was the owners, trainers, and jockeys who depend on the sport for either their pleasure or their livelihood that felt the brunt of the decision to cancel racing. The ARC will move on to the next raceday with the myopic belief that the incident is behind them and it is business as usual.
They will not see the effect that the cancellation of the day had on the enthusiasm of one more owner who decided not to invest in any additional horses; one prospective punter who had made plans to visit the track on that day for the first time because (s)he was available at last; the loss of income to one jockey who had a debt to repay and was depending on the income earned that day to do so. None of these developments touch directly those involved in the administration of the sport so we will blissfully move to the next travesty that I will be left to write about at some point in time in the future.
It is in case you missed it, the Comedy of Errors and misguided judgement, known as the Arima Race Club.