Racing was abandoned on Saturday after race nine on the ten-race card.
This occurred after the horses had already been treated for Lasix and began to parade. All were eventually led back to their stables. The sequence suggests that the cancellation was not at the hands of the racing officials (stewards) but more likely forced upon them by the actions of others involved–most likely the jockeys.
The official announcement attributed the cancellation to concern for the safety of the riders and their reluctance to ride.
While many of the events which led to the cancellation were outside of the control of those charged with the day's responsibility, some of the events were and as far as possible, the ARC management needs to review these causes to determine what action can be taken in the future to minimise its occurrence.
The first factor that needs to be looked at is the adequacy of the ambulance service. It is adequate for the ARC to have one ambulance during the day's races. It is however unacceptable that once this ambulance has been called into service to transport an injured rider to medical care that arrangements are not immediately made for a substitute ambulance to be brought in.
Through this arrangement, there would be no need for the inordinate delay between the running of one race and the other as occurred following race two on Saturday.
There was also a communication issue between the ambulance and officials on the track since at one time it was thought that the ambulance was closer than it actually was, resulting in the all clear being given to trainers to saddle their horses.
A large number of turfites were turned off during this wait and the lack of communication. Clearly some sort of arrangement of that nature was done because there was no delay associated with the falls that took place during the running of race six. This should be permanently in place.
Having waited almost one hour before race three, which actually took place after the scheduled start of race four, there was a need for urgent pro-active action by the Club's management.
It certainly appeared that nothing was done to expedite the staging of the remaining races resulting in the inevitable cancellation of the last race. Had the Club been proactive, a number of alternative options were possible.
Firstly, the interval time between all remaining races should have been reduced. This would reduce the betting time and therefore what should have been done is the immediate opening of all parameters to enable betting to take place on all races and constant reminders to turfites that they need not wait until the betting was "officially opened" on the subsequent race to place their bets. If all projections were showing that there was no way in which all of the remaining races could be run, the Stewards should have taken the decision to cancel race nine which had a small field of seven horses. What is the point in contesting such an uncompetitive event at the cost of a 16 horse field in race ten. For this to occur however, bearing in mind Lasix, etc considerations, the Club management would have had to taken charge of the situation rather than allow things to proceed naturally. There was clearly no management of the situation, which undoubtedly would have cost the Club revenue since the betting turnover on race 10 was likely to be far greater than that on race nine.
The other major aspect of both developments was the apparent lack of accountability during the running of the race for the falls which occurred. In race two, there were three objections to the winner. In race 6, there was only a Stewards Enquiry. What was interesting in both cases is that none of the angles of the cameras which provided surveillance of the events, gave a really good angle of the bends on which the incidents occurred. There was no head on that really captured the horses as they made the bends.
We were able to see a side view and a view from behind but the real view that was needed, the one that showed the horses head on making the bends was never seen. Maybe the Stewards would have access to it but it was not shown to the patrons resulting in much speculation over whether the appropriate actions were taken.
In race two, it seemed as though the winner was clear of the incidents. In race six, it is clear that the first faller clipped the heels of the winner but what was not clear is whether the winner had drifted back to the inside after drifting initially to the outside.
One point that went relatively unnoticed during the delay was the effect of the delay on the actual performance of the runners in race three. All of the horses in the race competed with Lasix but some horses would have been more affected by its waning influence than others.
The fact that the result was essentially in the order expected by the punters would suggest that the delay had no material impact on same but can we really say so with any certainty. The delay would have contributed to a nullification of Lasix's impact and this is another reason why such incidents should never be allowed to happen again. ::AB