THE continued wet autumn cost the Manning Valley Race Club its scheduled race meeting at Taree on Monday and now the battle to try to ensure the next planned meeting goes ahead has begun.
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That meeting is set down for Monday, May, 27, and MVRC chief executive Damien Toose says the club would love to see a break in the weather over the next couple of weeks to help with plans to dry out the saturated track to some degree.
"It's pretty much been raining regularly for the last couple of months and with the change of seasons and the heat having gone out of the day the tracks just aren't drying out as quickly in the cooler climate," Toose said.
"It's the same challenge that all clubs face along the Mid North Coast and in other areas as well at the moment.
"Our track has consistently been rated in the heavy range for about six-to-eight weeks, so we haven't been able to escape it at all and get some sort of respite from the weather.
"Forecasting the weather can be like trying to pick the winning Lotto numbers, so regardless of what might be forecast hopefully we've seen the back of the heavy rain.
"We're looking with our track manager Scott Olson at ways of opening up the track a bit more to get some fresh air into it because it's so wet underneath that the water just can't get away.
"We can aerate it more to try to make that happen, but at the same time we need more sunshine than rain for that process to work properly because if it rains it defeats the purpose of what you're trying to do.
"You expect this type of weather in winter and not so much in autumn. The track is just so saturated you've got to look at ways of getting more air down into it to help it to dry out. Scott's an expert, so we'll aim to do that and hopefully there's a positive effect."
Monday's meeting was always under serious threat with the track rated a Heavy 10 all last week and after further rain over the weekend an early-morning inspection by stewards on Monday deemed it unsuitable for racing and the meeting was abandoned.
"We had a couple of horses gallop on the track on Friday," Toose said. "That's always the best guide, what the jockeys think when they gallop them, and we knew we needed a couple of nice days after that. But unfortunately that didn't happen.
"It obviously affects the club financially when you lose a meeting, but at the end of the day you can't be racing on an unsafe track and that's the main concern."
