THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - SETTING A CRITICAL TEMPERATURE WILL HELP DECIDE HEAT ISSUE

By Graham Potter | Sunday, November 23, 2014

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

The heat gauge is going to plague racing this summer.

Already last weekend we had adjusted race-times at Warwick and plenty of debate on how to proceed at the Sunshine Coast where the temperature topped 41 degrees before the start of the Sunday meeting.

This weekend Racing NSW brought their Hot Weather Policy into play … and so it will roll on during the coming summer months.

To put a perfect policy in place is almost impossible. The best anyone can hope for is a policy that finds the correct, honest, common-sense balance between the desire to race and the necessity to end proceedings when conditions warrant doing so.

Racing Queensland’s current Animal Welfare Policy provides a host of requirements to ensure the well-being of racehorses under extreme heat conditions. All are solid pointers which, if applied to the letter of the law, would serve that purpose admirably.

Simple things like horses stabled out of the sun, ensuring adequate wash bays are available, providing drinking water, having sponges, towels and extra water-hoses available, providing large bins continually stocked with bags of ice and water to help cool horses, minimising the time horses are required to parade … etc.

So let’s give that a big tick.

When horses go out to race though, all of that protection falls away … albeit only briefly … and it is then that protocol apparently gives way to opinion with, on the evidence of last Sunday’s procedure, no absolute prescribed dictate as to when it is actually safe to a go out and race or not.

While the race-day stewards have the final call on the fate of any meeting, they are actually in a tough spot here given that any decision they make is largely based on feedback received from jockeys, who like the horse have to go out onto the field of play, trainers and veterinarians.

You could argue that stewards are paid to do that job but, in the current circumstances, their decision can only be as good as the information they receive … and therein lies a flaw in the current system.

Last Sunday jockeys formally complained about the heat. Some said it was difficult to breath in the heavy air during the race.

Many showed added measures of reluctance to proceed but, when put on the spot, most came up with the standard response to stewards that, ‘if everybody else is going around, I’ll go around.’ Ditto the trainers.

Of course, quite understandably, nobody wanted to be the fall guy.

And that is what the stewards can sit with unless the vets specifically advise against racing.

Given that fact, should discretion not be taken out of the equation with a particular temperature mark being set as the critical point which, when reached, means proceedings are brought to a halt?

That wouldn’t necessarily mean the meeting would end. There could be a delay, just as there is now when lightning is in the area. Last Sunday it took just half-an-hour for the temperature to go from debatable to raceable.

Making that rule would not only provide all participants with absolute clarity but would also ensure the integrity of racing’s Animal Welfare Policy.

Surely that’s reason enough to do it!

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