LARRY'S VIEW - ACTION NEEDS TO BE TAKEN NOW

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, March 9, 2012

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

I know fellow HRO bloggers Robert Heathcote and David Fowler have already given their views on the problem that arose at Eagle Farm last Saturday concerning the state of the track. Add in my view here and HRO readers thus have a complete cross-section of opinion … from form analyst, trainer and jockey … on which to judge the situation.

Let me say at the outset that Eagle Farm, as far as I’m concerned, used to be one of the best tracks in the country.

I used to love riding at Eagle Farm. It was one of the first tracks I rode on when I came to Australia and I put it up there as one of the best tracks I’ve ever ridden on.

That was then.

Currently there are two realities that need to be faced. One, the track has just lost its way. Two, if this situation is not acted upon in the near future … by that I mean rip the whole thing up, not patch it up … most times it rains there won’t be a race-meeting. It’s as simple as that.

Although we ultimately got through the meeting … with disruption … last Saturday, that day was a prime example of how quickly things can take a turn for the worse.

Looking at the track before race one it looked to be a very good track. It was the best I’ve seen it for a while. It had a bit of a break and it looked very good.

We raced on it in race one and there was a bit of a dig in it.

On to race two … which was the race I won on Marked. There was some more dig in it. Any more dig and Marked probably wouldn’t have liked it so much.

Then we obviously got that shower and it goes from a Dead 4 … I think they had it as a Dead 4, but it was probably on the worse side of Dead … and the moment we had that rain, inside of half-an-hour, the track goes to a Heavy 10.

They only put up a Heavy 9, but if you ask anyone out there it was a Heavy 10.

The big thing that caused the disruption was the visibility. I know in race four I was back about five lengths off them towards the fence and it was incredibly difficult to see what was in front of you.

I was nearly riding blind and, even when I got to the outside, all I could see in front of me was dark blobs which I presumed were horses. The problem beyond that was judging distance because I couldn’t really tell how far in front of me they were. So there were safety issues.

When it stopped raining obviously visibility didn’t come into it, but it really remained a marginal call on the state of the track.

We finished the day which was great, but the track was marginal.

The moment they get rain, the track is officially downgraded one spot, where most riders know it should be downgraded three or four spots.

It’s a shame to see a great track like this be allowed to deteriorate to this extent.

What the events of Saturday showed is that anytime you race at Eagle Farm, even if you start on a Good 3, if they have a downpour you are at risk of having the meeting called off.

If this problem is not acted upon, it is just going to happen and happen and happen to the detriment of racing in Brisbane.

The problem is brought into focus even more by the fact that, right across the road, Doomben is now such a good wet weather track after the remedial work they did some ten years ago.

So the precedent for a successful solution is there.

Of course there can be no quick-fix. The cost will be huge, both in terms of upfront outlay and loss of earnings while the track is out of action, but the bottom line of the message posted on Saturday is there is an even greater danger in doing nothing.

Till next week,
Larry

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