\u201cThe track has made gradual improvement during the winter, but it still needs that little bit more time so it can host a large set of trials that would then tick off a race meeting,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a general consensus to give the track more time. It is still quite young and immature off the back of the necessary renovation works that were carried out to soften the track, which was really important so the horses can get good purchase in the track and make sure they are not going to slip. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat [renovation] was successful and the trials went well, albeit there was a bit of kickback, which is expected with a new track. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a good indicator to everyone that it needs more time, so it is going to get more time, which is a great result.\u201d <\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe said another season would have been ideal to carry out the remedial work because winter\u2019s conditions were not suited to grass growth.<\/p>\n
But with spring a few weeks away, he expects to see that growth when the track undergoes its next inspection in three weeks. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt [track]) has taken to it [remedial work] well, it is just not the ideal time of year to do it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are going to do major works to a track, you would wait for the growing period, ie spring, autumn or summer. Unfortunately, going into winter, the works were required. The works were carried out, it has gone well and softened the track. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no issues at the previous jumpouts of any slipping, which is a tick. It just needs time to recover, rest and rejuvenate. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor the remainder of this week there will be an oversew on the track, there will be its regular fertiliser and then it will just be staying off the track to let the grass rejuvenate and recover and get thicker and stronger.\u201d <\/p>\n
While the track is being given more time to recover, Awapuni\u2019s two scheduled meetings for next month (September 6 and 20) will be transferred elsewhere, and another track inspection will take place to assess whether it is ready to handle another trials meeting. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to reconvene in three weeks\u2019 time,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said. \u201cWe will have a walk with all of the industry participants together and hopefully then we can put a plan in place to return to trialling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 LOVERACING.NZ News Desk<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe track has made gradual improvement during the winter, but it still needs that little bit more time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[27616,126024,26332,10911,126026,20993,26338,28346,30368,20996,1071,26335,126025,79,3114,6093,26339,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-358044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-awapuni","10":"tag-awapunis","11":"tag-been","12":"tag-delayed","13":"tag-given","14":"tag-grass","15":"tag-loses","16":"tag-meetings","17":"tag-more","18":"tag-racing","19":"tag-return","20":"tag-settle","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-time","23":"tag-to","24":"tag-track","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115058175172736965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}