Club Borrows Gates After False Starts
- Sunday, 02 August 2009 00:00
Racing officials at New Zealand's Canterbury club will borrow a set of starting gates for the remainder of the Riccarton carnival following a debacle with the barriers on the first day.
A false start was declared for Saturday's feature, the Winter Cup, after the gates holding Propel and El Bee Dee failed to open.
The gates worked properly when the field set off a second time with the race won by Taking The Mickey.
But the same barriers that failed did so again for the next race, the day's final event, with The Prawn Star and Lonely George stranded.
Starter Stephanie Payne quickly declared a false start and the field reassembled, but when they set off, the same two horses were again left behind.
No false start was declared and after initial hesitation by some jockeys, the race was on despite the main course siren sounding.
Caught Out won the race from Skirmish but after more than an hour's deliberation, the race day judicial committee declared the race void and refunded punters' money.
Chief stipendiary steward Reid Sanders said he would be asking for South Canterbury's gates to be used on the next two days of the carnival.
"We can't afford to have this happening again," he told Trackside TV.
He believed the decision to abandon the race to be the correct one as punters did not receive a fair chance.
Canterbury Jockey Club chief executive Tim Mills said the club had obtained the use of South Canterbury's gates.
"They will be used whilst investigations continue into identifying the reasons behind the malfunction of the starting gates which were in use on Saturday," he said.
Caught Out's trainer Peter McKenzie and jockey David Walsh and the connections of Skirmish had asked the judicial committee to declare the result valid, with the horses affected as late scratchings.
In April, a false start was declared in a race for two-year-olds when the Riccarton gates for two of the 11 runners failed to open.
But on that occasion, the jockeys had trouble pulling up their mounts.
Trainers of four of the horses who had completed most of the 1000 metres before they were able to be restrained withdrew their horses, while vets ruled the other five who ran had elevated heart rates and were scratched.
The judicial committee decided the two horses left in the barrier gates should race and their jockeys took them back to the start.
But just before they were about to enter the gates, a decision was announced on-course that the race was abandoned because of time constraints.
