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New Zealand Racing News
Friday, July 14 2017

The Wellington Racing Club’s prestige jumping events have found a new home and will be run at Hastings next Thursday.

This week’s polar blast left officials with no choice but to call off Saturday’s meeting at Trentham that featured the Grant Plumbing Wellington Steeplechase and the Anuka Smoker Wellington Hurdles.  

However, New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing has announced the events will be slotted into Hawke’s Bay Racing’s programme.

The steeplechase will run at the unchanged distance of 5500m and the hurdles will drop back from 3400 to 3100m.

The change of venue was forced following an inspection of the Trentham track this morning and stewards and club officials didn’t take too long to call a halt to proceedings.

“I understand it wasn’t a difficult decision to make to abandon,”  NZTR General Manager of Racing Matthew Hall said.

“Those of us who have been in Wellington for the last 48 hours won’t be surprised by that.”

Two main areas of concern left the inspection committee in no doubt that the meeting couldn’t go ahead.

“There was surface water on the figure eight course and they did look at closing one jump and plotting a path around it, but that wasn’t feasible,” Hall said.

“There was also a lot of surface from the 200m mark to the winning post and then around to the 1400. It was a significant area under water.”

Delaying the meeting wasn’t a viable option either.

“The forecast for tomorrow has deteriorated a bit as well so we couldn’t move it to Sunday,” Hall said.

Posted by: Racing Desk AT 03:02 am   |  Permalink   |  Email
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