But it wasn’t.
And the outcome was — well — pretty satisfactory.
The decision between stewards, the club and NZTR to find a spot for the meeting on Labour Day Monday was well timed and allowed the track to take enough rain to cause no problems by Monday.
And, by the look of the track, jockeys and horses could not have asked for a better surface.
Programming for some horses might have been put out by a few days, but today’s fields at Gore have filled up just fine.
. . . and worth a watch
The New Zealand Trotting Cup, on the other hand, hasn’t filled up.
It is pretty much a fait accompli that the 3200m battle on November 8 won’t be a full field. Rather than 15 runners, 12 or possibly 11 runners are likely to face the standing start tapes in the back straight at Addington.
Is that a bad thing?
Not necessarily.
As mentioned in this column in the past, a field featuring Lazarus, Have Faith In Me, Smolda, Titan Banner, Christen Me, Messini and Franco Nelson is hardly battlers material and a look back through recent New Zealand Cup fields will reveal more than a few horses making up the numbers in past years.
Not that Racing Matters would have turned down the opportunity for a share in any of those, mind you.
While the All Stars Stables already has four (almost) confirmed starters in the cup, you wonder what might have been if Dream About Me — an outstanding winner at Ashburton on Monday — had been nominated.
Churning through
Breathtaking seems to be a fair word to describe Winx’s Cox Plate victory last Saturday.
And I’m pretty sure we can excuse Chris Waller getting emotional yet again after her win.
Shout-out to Hugh Bowman as well for what was another eloquent post-race interview no more than a minute after he crossed the line.
But "curious" is the word which springs to mind in regards to the scheduling.
For the last few years, the Moonee Valley Racing Club has persevered with its double-header approach, running the Manikato Stakes meeting on the Friday night before the Saturday Cox Plate meeting.
Considering the weather which hit Melbourne last week — although the worst of it never eventuated — and the need for many horses on Saturday to edge their way progressively wider on the track as the meeting went on, is it really best for Australasia’s weight-for-age championship to be run on a track which has already hosted 16 races in less than 24 hours?
Lazy Fiver
Heni missed out by a short head at Riccarton on Saturday.
Take a look at the North Island pacer Walkinshaw in the sales series pace (race 8) at Kaikoura on Monday.
