The country’s thoroughbred racing season was to have ended at the conclusion of racing at Rotorua and Otaki tomorrow, but the postponement of the South Canterbury Racing Club’s meeting has changed that.
The meeting, which was to have been held today, has been rescheduled to Sunday, so for the second time in less than a week, South Island thoroughbreds will today be huddled in their loose boxes rather than out on the track. A meeting at Oamaru was postponed and then eventually cancelled early this week due to the deluge of rain that hit the eastern South Island last weekend and left parts of the Timaru track under water.
When stipendiary steward Mark Davidson walked the Phar Lap racetrack to inspect it yesterday, he found parts
flooded with what looked to be the remnants of last weekend’s heavy rain.
"It is only parts of the track where the water has nowhere to go and there are ponds across the racing surface," he said.
MetService figures showed the town got little more than 10mm of rain yesterday, compared with the 84mm the area was hit with last weekend. New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing announced yesterday that the Timaru meeting would be postponed until Sunday.
The programme’s fields remain the same, but all scratchings were reinstated.
Johnson has eight rides on the Timaru card. He goes into tomorrow’s Rotorua meeting, where Francis Drake, in the Taumarunui Cup, is among his book of six rides, on 112 wins. He has a 16-win lead over his nearest rival, Alysha Collett.
Rotorua racecourse has had its fair share of recent rain and is likely to be rated
heavy11. That could prove a challenge for the Graeme and Debbie Rogerson-trained Francis Drake who has managed only third and fifth placings in two starts on the wettest of surfaces.
Francis Drake sat on the fourth line of betting yesterday behind three proven mudlarks. When fixed-odds markets opened yesterday, Jochen Rindt was a $4.20 favourite ahead of $6 second favourite Katie McKeen and Pump Up The Volume at $6.80.
What is in Francis Drake’s favour is his dropping from the mammoth 62.5kg weight he carried when fourth behind Jochen Rindt at Te Rapa in his last start to a comparatively luxurious 56kg.
Jochen Rindt carried 58.5kg in that win, meaning Francis Drake meets him 2.5kg better off tomorrow.
- Jonny Turner
