It has been speculated a ‘rogue sprinkler’ was partly to blame for the Magic Millions meeting being postponed
The Gold Coast Track curator has revealed a rogue sprinkler was partly to blame for the Magic Millions meeting being called off.
Gold Coast track curator Nevesh Ramdhani suspects a rogue sprinkler was partly behind Saturday’s debacle, which saw the Magic Millions meeting called off after just two races.
Ramdhani, who says he is not 100 per cent sure what caused a wet spot on the turn to appear on Saturday morning, says he was let down by a weather forecast, which predicted no more than 1mm of rain to fall on Saturday.
After copping criticism over the firmness of the track seven days earlier, Gold Coast curators put 44mm of irrigation on the track over the week.
“I did give it 44mm of irrigation, but that was following the forecast, which has let me down,” Ramdhani said.
“We aren’t entirely sure what happened at the 350m mark with the wet patch.
“We can only assume there is something underneath, or the sprinkler (water) has hit the rail, when it hits the rail it falls down and creates a pool.
“I don’t think the irrigation burst, there’s no leak and we shut the pumps down – it wasn’t getting any worse.
“At the end of the day, it was there and we had to deal with it. Our best option was to move the rail out.
“This rain wasn’t forecast, it is the type of rain that is a soft circle of rain – we have had 14mm today on raceday.
“The area the jockeys were pointing out was nowhere near the wet patch from this morning.”
The unprecedented circumstances saw stewards put up a Soft (7) for the majority of the track and a Heavy (9) for a section on the turn.
But after race one, it was quickly downgraded to a Heavy (10) for the entire track.
It came as the track was upgraded a week earlier from a Good 4 to Good 3 and horses ran slick times.
“I’m not shying away from my responsibility as the track manager, I feel sick about it to be honest,” he said.
“I have to try and present the best track I can and we got caught out today.
“I have never had a scenario where I have had to move the rail the morning of a race meeting, that was the circumstances we had and how it played out.
Ezekeil puts on a show in the opener on @mmsnippets Raceday!@jamieleekah07 and @CodyMor12594764 kick off proceedings in the $500k Country Cup. 🆠pic.twitter.com/PrauCjdx79
— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) January 14, 2023
“Up until Friday morning, I had put 40mm of irrigation on the track, the forecast hadn’t changed.
“The feedback from the week before was that the track was firm, which I disputed, but in people’s heads it was a firm track.
“I gave it 4mm (on Friday), which was nowhere near as much as what it got on Saturday.”
Moving the meeting until Thursday will also delay the start of a significant redevelopment at the track, with bulldozers originally scheduled to be coming first thing Monday morning.
Originally published as It has been speculated a ‘rogue sprinkler’ was partly to blame for the Magic Millions meeting being postponed
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