By CASEY NEILL
AN eight-race meet was abandoned at Springvale’s Sandown Racecourse after horses slipped on soggy turf.
Racing Victoria stewards inspected the track following the first race after riders complained about a slippery section between the 800-metre and 400-metre marks.
The stewards ordered the area to be aerovated before meeting with the riders due to hit the track in Race 2.
At 2pm the jockeys voted in a secret ballot to abandon the remaining races.
Racing Victoria said it would not reschedule the meeting, but would add a 3YO BM70 1200m race to the Ladbrokes Park Lakeside meeting on Wednesday 27 July.
Trainers could nominate horses that were due to run at Sandown for the Sunday 24 July Bendigo and Moe meetings, the Monday 25 July Swan Hill meeting, and the Pakenham meeting on Tuesday 26 July.
A Melbourne Racing Club spokesman said the track was relatively firm, particularly for the time of year, but was greasy on top following a couple of millimetres of rain overnight.
“This caused a couple of horses to slip in the first race as the field declined turning into the home straight,” he said.
“Upon inspection, the slip marks were minor but obvious so we ran some machinery over the turf in this area in order to create a more tractable surface, which it did.
“Despite the senior jockeys of the meeting displaying a desire to proceed with racing, six of the jockeys set to ride in the second race elected not to, which triggered stewards to abandon the meeting.”
He said there were no underlying track issues and there was no reason the Wednesday 27 July meeting would not go ahead as scheduled.
Victorian Jockeys Association CEO Des O’Keeffe said “a perfect storm of climactic conditions led to the unfortunate abandonment of the meeting at Sandown today on the grounds of horse and rider safety being paramount”.
“It’s been quite dry out there, the track has got quite firm underneath, the grass on top was quite long, they got a couple of millimetres of rain, it’s downhill from the top of the hill at the 800m to where they straighten for home, and it became quite skatey,” he said.
“You’ve got the perfect worse-case scenario.
“It can happen here in Victoria from time to time.
“The bottom line is, from our point of view, some renovations were done but they couldn’t encompass the entire surface.
“Some immediate renovation work was undertaken which dealt with part of the track but potentially not all of it.”
