DISGRUNTLED punters are starting to wonder how long it will be before they get to bet on the grass at a Sunshine Coast race meeting again.
The 'big wet' must be especially targeting Caloundra with the Sunday meeting at Corbould Park unbelievably transferred to the Cushion Track yet again - but this time as early as Tuesday.
It’s hard to imagine that the Sunshine Coast track for Sunday can be deemed unsafe five days beforehand when they raced at Doomben today (Wednesday) under sunny skies on a Dead 4 surface.No doubt officialdom will be justified in their early call if the predicted rain (or even that cyclone) bears down on the east coast but surely they could have delayed a decision until closer to the weekend to at least give punters some chance of betting on their preferred grass surface.
Queensland Racing advised yesterday (Tuesday) that following an inspection of the course proper at Corbould Park, the decision has been taken to transfer the meeting on Sunday, March 21, 2010, to the Cushion Track.
Their statement read: ‘Corbould Park has been inundated with 45mm of rain since nominations were taken on Monday morning and safety concerns remain regarding the surface adjacent to the crossing.
‘Corbould Park has received 413mm or (16.5 inches) of rain during March and with continuing showers predicted until Friday and between 50mm to 100mm of rain forecast on the Sunshine Coast over the weekend, there was no alternative but to transfer this meeting to the Cushion Track.’
Here’s hoping the Weather Bureau is a better judge at forecasting than QR has been in recent times at rating the tracks. Punters continue to complain of doing form for heavy and slow tracks and winding up on surfaces that are little worse than Dead.
Whilst everyone accepts that safety has to be the foremost concern for all involved in racing, it does appear that QR is a little too eager to transfer meetings to these dreadful Cushion Tracks.
Statistics show that punters don’t want to bet on these surfaces and many trainers and jockeys don’t want to race or ride on them either.
They serve a purpose for the 11th hour transfer of meetings in the event of wet weather but if QR is going to start transferring to Cushion Tracks on the basis of rain being forecast five to six days ahead then there is going to be a lot less use of grass circuits.
As one e-mail writer suggested today: "If they called off meetings after this much run in New Zealand they wouldn't race for the entire Winter."
For those who like to have a bet on Sunday our advice is ignore the Sunshine Coast Cushion track meeting and invest your hard-earned at the Keith Nolan Classic meeting at Kembla Grange or at the Yarra Valley and Tatura Cups meetings in Victoria. Their more attractive than the Queensland venue would have been on the grass.
In fact statistics show that it’s a safer conveyance betting interstate than Queensland – even when the grass is in use – just ask the form analysts and big punters or better still peruse the results!
