By LIAM TWOMEY
RACING Victoria is investigating the circumstances which led to last week’s Werribee race meeting being abandoned.
The meet was called off after the completion of eight of the 10 scheduled races.
RV stewards determined that a section of the track between the 900m and 600m mark had deteriorated during the meeting to the point where it was unsafe for the meeting to continue.
Frenchkook, ridden by apprentice Boris Thornton fell in race eight and had to be euthanized as a result of its injuries.
“I have opened a full investigation into the circumstances that led to the fall and the meeting being abandoned, commencing with an inspection tomorrow (Thursday) morning by our tracks and facilities team,” RV Chief Executive Bernard Saundry said after the meet.
“My preliminary advice is that the track was of a suitable standard for racing at the commencement of the meeting, but had deteriorated as a result of traffic throughout the eight races conducted.”
Wednesday’s meeting was the last scheduled race day at Werribee before a 10 week break in the lead up to the spring carnival and Werribee Cup.
“It was disappointing the way it ended,” Werribee Racing Club CEO Ross Kendell said.
“Racing Victoria is doing an assessment of the track at the moment to see if there was any issue.
“The track certainly started off really well at the beginning of the day and it just started to tail off a little bit as the day went on.
“We have had a good program of racing since the Werribee Cup last year and after the quarantine period. We have had a number of trials here as well. The track has been handling all that pretty well and it has been a great asset to the industry. We just want to make sure we’ve got all this right and focus on that quarantine period.”
Werribee is the home to the Racing Victoria owned and operated quarantine centre where many of world’s best horses reside prior to the spring racing carnival.
Saundry said he did not expect the abandonment to affect Racing Victoria’s ability to welcome international horses for this year’s carnival.
