V’LANDYS DISMISSES SYNTHETIC TRACK OPTION

By Graham Potter | Monday, July 1, 2013

The weather that has ravaged the racing fixture schedule on the Eastern seaboard of Australia continues to frustrate the efforts of many racing club’s trying to host a race meeting.

In Sydney, the meeting two Saturdays ago only lasted for three races. Tuesday’s meeting at Warwick Farm was then abandoned and last Saturday’s meeting at Rosehill was rescheduled for today where, after a weekend of doubt, it will go ahead, starting on heavy 10.

Several provincial and country meetings also were lost during this time because of the adverse weather conditions.

Perhaps one of the most interesting responses to come out of the situation of the past week was that of Racing NSW chief executive Peter V'Landys when referencing his view on the value of different racing surfaces.

V'Landys stated that he believed synthetic tracks would not solve the sort of problems that track managers have been faced with in the last ten days.

"Synthetic tracks are not the answer for us,” V’Landys said. “The research is showing there are more injuries on synthetic tracks and punters don't like them. They prefer turf tracks.”

V’Landys did give a big tick to the new all-weather StrathAyr track that is scheduled to open at Randwick in three months’ time.

"The Kensington track is StrathAyr like Moonee Valley and I don't think they have ever lost a meeting," V’Landys said.

** V'Landys' view is likely to strike a cord with many stakeholders in S E Queensland. The trauma and trail of dissent and industry fragmentation that followed the introduction of two cushion tracks into Queensland several years ago is still a bitter memory for many stakeholders in South East Queensland who opposed the move at the time when, for the most part, putting forward much the same argument as offered by V’Landys.

The cushion track at Toowoomba is scheduled to be torn up later this month with the track then being returned to a grass surface. The original cushion track at the Sunshine Coast is now only used for racing on an extremely limited basis.