Response to article about race cancellations

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Here is a response I received the other day regarding the races being called off last week. If you are looking for the article I put up and can be found on the home page ‘Your thoughts on this weeks topics?’

This says a lot on what people are feeling. I had to edit the last part, but it was simply stating a lot of peoples thoughts.

Thanks to Chris.L for sending this in. Cheers mate.

 

Hi Gibbo,

 It was good to see you raise the question on your website regarding the abandonment of the Sunshine Coast races on Friday 27th. Paul Brennan from RQ stated that the meeting would not be transferred to the All-Weather track because it contained feature races.  They were concerned that too many horses would scratch with a change of racing surface.  Isn’t this normally the case when they race on a Heavy track also?  We all saw 2 horses line up at Warwick Farm the other day after the other 10 scratched.
More importantly they made the decision without actually knowing what the intentions were from the connections with horses engaged. Nobody bothered to ask the trainers if they would support the race if it was transferred.  There were 12 acceptors in the Sunshine Coast Cup.  All they had to do was make a dozen phone calls and they would have had all the feedback they needed to make an informed decision.  Instead they chose to unnecessarily lost all 8 races on a high profile race night (re: Black Caviar’s return).
Its true that in the past they have had a number of horses scratched when transferred to the cushion track.  The key is that these were just $10,000 races.  It could well be a different story when there’s $100,000 and $150,000 races up for grabs.  I guess we’ll never know because RQ never even bothered to try.  So much for the $millions they spent putting in the cushion track when they can’t even support it themselves.
Chris.