Greyville Friday 22/11/13

Thor, the weather on the day might be great but the condition of the course after the rain in the 36hrs make it not safe to race. I would love to know where you live( is it next to Greyville so you can walk the course and make an informed decision or JHB or Cape Town) and what your credentials are in racing to make comments like "the monkey's that make the decision" and what makes you so negative?

If the pen at 3 pm was 36 then the right call was made! Maybe the could of made the call a bit later but suppose for trainer prepping horses and staff best to know sooner still think they should of moved the meeting!!!! I know they lose money but in all forms of life you take knocks. But I see gold circle is about showing profits with I understand,but what about the owners and trainer that had good draws and chances!renominate and draw in the bush. Jhb and ctown always seem to move races in there wet season. And stand to be corrected this would of been first meeting to move??? And in couple of months Polly track will be in durban so they won't have this problem anymore!!!

I think there should be a standard set for going at tracks - Obviously each track is different but the course manager should have the details of that ie what reading makes the course "unraceable ". A provincial team consisting of top riders, stipes and track managers(the operator should have no say as this is a purely safety issue and betting should not sway the verdict) should inspect the course at a predetermined time and if necessary (i would hope it would be done) then two horses should be galloped. The stipes should set a predetermined time to say yes or no to a meeting so that the punters know where they stand. We must always remember that the horse and rider come first - I think we have a fairly good record regards dangerous conditions and there's always tomorrow to have a punt but a dead Jockey or horse is not worth the risk.

i walked the whole track at 16.30 yesterday afternoon and it was dry...condolences to all owners of runners last night...

Exactly Mr H, the horse and jockey's safety must over rule any other factors and that is exactly what our head stipe Shaun Parker says and goes by. Just spoke to Cecil Baitz who most will know through his many years in racing as an owner and administrator, and he said that it was one of the worst storms he has ever seen in Dbn and absolutely no chance they could race and there was water everywhere.

i was at greyville club tab when the storm was on and it looked and sounded a lot worse than it looked..i live 3km up the road and the the rain gauge said 21mm of rain fell..i repeat i walked the track at 4.30pm and it was dry and very raceable ..quite frankly i was glad they called it off as i had other things to do but the smoke and mirrors you read on this thread is absolute crap..but then again im not a trainer or a jockey so who am i to say they couldnt race after walking the course...

Pirates, why did they not race or want to race then? No one has answered that question yet.

the course on the side has been dug up to put down pipes for drainage and its about 2 metres wide and it is very soft and dangerous compared to the rest of the surface...the photo titch has showed is how it looks for a good few hundred metres...with the track already narrowed from the building of the polytrack the racing surface would have been even further narrowed....like i said either way it makes no difference to me in fact as a punter it was a very poor card to bet on ...im at greyville club tab 4 to 5 times a week and when it rains you can always see outside where the drains are how much rain there has been and how long it takes to dry out .

Craig Eudey Wrote:

---

> Pirates, why did they not race or want to race
> then? No one has answered that question yet.


craig its pretty obvious why they did not race...they took the weather forecast as gospel ,because there was a chance of rain predicted for yesterday..and then preempted that that was the right decision...with further rain predicted...it was an absolute shocking decision to be so hasty in their decision..in days gone by...especially knowing that greyville had the best drainage system..,we would have even raced had it been a day meeting....and with the perfect conditions to have the wind blowing and drying out the course over the whole day...it was ,i reitterate,a shocking decision

Mr B must have been away November last year

Pirates, RG I still don't see why they would cancel for nothing. Would they dig a drainage ditch knowing that if they did we would not be able to race and then hope like hell that it would rain so they could blame it on the weather?:S I have 2 trainers, a jockey and a prominent owner(besides the GC employees) that tell me that there was no chance of racing after the storm and I must now believe they all lying to me? Why would these independent people all have the same story?:S

craig like how u are insisting we give u an answe about why they didnt race.....we are just throwing it back to the same ppl for an answer...other than it was too wet...when we know for a fact that at 5 pm yesterday...the ground was perfect...now u go back to those ppl that u talk about and give us an answer as at 5 pm...if the decision would have been the same