Trainers eagerly await Eagle Farm upgrade to guarantee level playing field

TONY Gollan has no great complaints about the Brisbane Winter Carnival but says trainers are anticipating a much fairer racing surface in the future.

Eagle Farm

TONY Gollan has no great complaints about the Brisbane Winter Carnival but says trainers are eagerly anticipating a much fairer racing surface in the future.

The overhaul of the Eagle Farm track, which becomes a bog even after light showers, has been a big talking point among trainers who feel it can be a lottery on Group 1 days during the carnival.

Racing Queensland has made upgrading the 140-year-old course a matter of urgency and will make a submission to the state government but the renovations cannot come soon enough for trainers.

"Once we get a new track it will be great and much more fair because the weather won't change things as much as it does currently," Gollan said.

"At the moment it only takes a little bit of rain on the track to change the results in a big way. If it took a big amount of rain to change things, that would be understandable.

"Your options are pretty much locked in every two weeks so when it rains and things change so quickly, there is nothing much you can do."
Gollan, who says the carnival has been well organised and scheduled, was delighted with the Stradbroke Handicap run of Spirit Of Boom, who finished fourth.

Spirit Of Boom has now been sent to the spelling paddock but Gollan is plotting a three-state spring campaign, culminating in the Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes in Perth in November.

Spirit Of Boom was the first visiting horse past the post in last year's Winterbottom, finishing third and only beaten a half-length by Barakey, but Gollan is determined to make the Perth visit more of a specific focus this year.

It means he will possibly run in The Shorts at Randwick and have fewer runs in Melbourne before the Perth mission.

"He will come back in the spring, and I really want to give him a red-hot crack at the Winterbottom," Gollan said.

"I enjoyed it in Perth last year and (the Winterbottom) is a Group 1 race that he can be really competitive in."

While Spirit Of Boom is probably not considered one of Australia's elite sprinters, Gollan is similar to other trainers in that he feels the country's big sprint races are much easier to crack with Black Caviar and several other star speedsters now retired.

Spring sprint races are likely to be far more open than in recent years.

"The sprinting ranks this spring will be a lot different," Gollan said.

David Ellis, one of Australasia's most successful racehorse owners, is in an induced coma in a Gold Coast hospital after contracting severe pneumonia.

Ellis, who runs Te Akau Racing, was in Queensland for last week's Magic Millions mixed horse sale when he became seriously ill. Ellis' wife Karyn Fenton-Ellis said he was expected to make a full recovery.