Gold Circle will be hoping the old wives tale that “disasters happen in threes,” is now a thing of the past after a series of mishaps affecting racing in KwaZulu-Natal this past fortnight.
Yesterday, Gold Circle technicians isolated the fault that led to the abandonment of the seventh race at Greyville on Tuesday evening.
While trying to load the field for the race, jockeys and handlers complained that there was electricity being generated within the starting stalls giving off shocks.
In an interview with on-course television presenter Paul Lafferty on the night, Gold Circle’s Racing Director, Graeme Hawkins, said it happened: “All of a sudden and for no apparent reason - and we have had the electricians down there.”
After trying in vain to load the field for the third time, “It soon became apparent that it was unfair on the horses because they were spooking from the gate because they had had a bad experience so in the interests of safety from a horses perspective it was decided to abandon that race,” Hawkins said.
Extensive tests were carried out on the starting pens yesterday morning to locate and rectify the problem. The stalls electrics were checked and tested and found to be in order. However, the cable that connects the pens to the signal cable going around the track for the start gong was then checked and found to be faulty. This cable carries a 48 volt signal back to the control room. The screw that retains the cable in the plug had come loose and was making contact with the body of the plug thus putting voltage on the pens. This particular cable was isolated at last night’s meeting by removing the control relay however with the nature of the fault it did not clear the problem. This has now been corrected and tested and all is in order.
After a lengthy delay and with all the electrics disconnected, the eighth race was started manually without incident and the odds-on favourite Northern Emperor won in a canter.
Last week a scheduled meeting at Clairwood was abandoned after the running of the first race after protests of a substandard racing surface were lodged.
In a statement released to members, Gold Circle apologised unreservedly to all racing’s stake holders and punters for the inconvenience caused by the abandonment.
“It is worrying that the affected turf at Clairwood has not satisfactorily responded to treatment as a consequence of the very dry, hot and windy conditions that prevailed for the first three weeks of January and clearly we are going to have to tackle the problem from another direction,” said Hawkins.
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