Quick action saves major meeting

QUICK action and dedicated efforts of the Harness Racing Victoria track maintenance team are being credited with saving last Saturday night’s rich Breeders’ Crown meeting.

Two heavy, isolated storms dropped more than 20mm of rain on Melton Entertainment Park leading up to the nine-race card, which severely impacted the surface of the home turn.

Melton track manager Jordan Robinson worked frantically with his crew of Joshua Raisbeck and Chris Lambrecht when the rain cleared to get the race meeting underway at the scheduled start time.

“The rain was heavy with hail stones, and I couldn’t really get on the track because the front straight was under water. We had that much rain in one hit – it was incredible,” Robinson said. “That cleared up and we were able to prepare the track.

“There was a third storm coming, but that went around us. We would have been in trouble if we got that third storm. The track wouldn’t have handled that at all.

“We had severe wash-outs on the home turn. They probably weren’t the worst wash-outs I’d seen, but you don’t want that prior to the first race. It was from the middle of the track down to the peg line.

“Usually you get very narrow wash-outs, but these ones were a foot wide and it started to wash into our base layer.”

Robinson said there was a very tight timeframe in which his team had to prepare the track, with just a couple of hours between the downpours and the first event on the card.

The track raced incredibly well, evidenced by a slick run in the opening race by Petracca, who rated 1:50:5 for the 1720m trip.

“I’ve done it before so I was confident I could get the track up, but if I got that little bit of extra rain I would have been in trouble,” Robinson said.

“This is what us as track curators do. It’s a challenge and I love a challenge, but you don’t want those kind of wash-outs two hours prior to your first race. It’s a track curator’s worst nightmare…”

There was a delay after race two on Saturday night due to lightning activity in the area, but all nine races were staged and the meeting completed at about 11.15pm.

Melton hosted trials on Tuesday and will race again this Saturday night.

• HRV Media