THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - THE NEED FOR A SMOOTH RETURN TO EAGLE FARM RACING

By Graham Potter | Sunday, April 24, 2016

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 return to racing at Eagle Farm has been deferred.

There will no racing at the track on May 11, with that meeting now being moved to the Sunshine Coast (who else) as that track yet again shows its capacity as a solid ‘go to’ resource when a helping hand is needed. Racing at Eagle Farm, as it stands now, has been rescheduled for a grand opening on Oaks Day, June 4.

The reasoning behind the latest Eagle Farm delay is sound. Nobody wants to run the risk of compromising the considerable investment in the track with an untimely starting date but that very fact also raises a touch of concern about the track’s immediate future going into the carnival.

There is no way that any race-club would willingly choose to have the first fully fledged meeting on a new racetrack on a Group 1 race-day where field sizes are likely to be as large as any time on the calendar ... racing in unpredictable weather.

Clearly for that to come into play the actual schedule has started to turn against the preferred timeframe.

So there is pressure is on. To what degree we will find out as we move along.

To compensate for the loss of the May 11 meeting, the intention is to transfer trials scheduled for Doomben on May 19 to Eagle Farm. Those trials will be open to the public as not only the track but also several refurbished facilities will be given an important ‘road test’ as Eagle Farm counts down to the Group 1 opening, then just sixteen days away.

There is not a punter in Queensland who is not hoping that the professional advice on which the Brisbane Racing Club is basing its decisions and optimism is correct.

The club’s belief is that the track ‘will benefit enormously from another couple of weeks, particularly the inside 4m section from the 300m to the winning post, ‘ which is under particular focus, and that ‘the track will be perfect by the Queensland Oaks meeting on June 4.’

That positive scenario would tick the one box that the club has always insisted it would need ticked before racing resumed at Eagle Farm, namely that they would not commence racing until the track was ‘one hundred percent’.

Nobody has reason to doubt anybody’s word but, by the same token, racing enthusiasts in Queensland have had to endure so many twists and turns with regard to the Eagle Farm redevelopment that they can probably be forgiven if they don’t hold their breath waiting for the now pending Eagle Farm opening to become a reality.

When it does though, for all of the difficulties Eagle Farm has had over the past two years, Brisbane Racing Club can count on the support of racing enthusiasts who would all like to see Eagle Farm fit seamlessly into the carnival schedule when its turn comes around.

The track at ‘headquarters’ is as much a major player in the Queensland racing scene as any horse, trainer or jockey and it’s absence as a racing venue has been highly detrimental to racing in the state ... which is why its successful return to action is so important.