Tony Cruz has slammed the condition of the Happy Valley track, saying Wednesday’s night surface was “one of the worst I have seen in a long time”.
While Hong Kong has been hit with persistent rain for over a week, Cruz is adamant the Valley track is far more worn than it should be.
“I must say, this is one of the worst tracks I have seen in a long time. We all know the weather is bad and everything, but it’s never been this bad before. The grass seems to be dying off, maybe because there’s no sunlight,” he said.
Cruz was one of a number of trainers and jockeys to voice their displeasure with the good-to-yielding surface.
The track, featuring only patchy grass cover, broke up considerably from the first race and not many horses made up significant ground on the night.
Zac Purton has been vocal about the softness of the tracks throughout the season, while Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges pondered in March whether a change in the profile of the sand-based Happy Valley track had impacted its famous draining capabilities.
The Jockey Club has cancelled Tuesday morning’s turf trials to give the Sha Tin surface a rest as it bids to nurse it through 11 consecutive weekends of racing between now and the end of the season in July.
Happy Valley will get a week off later this month thanks to the all-weather fixture at Sha Tin on May 29, with officials holding “no concerns whatsoever” about the tracks holding up for the remainder of the 2023-24 campaign.
“It’s an unfortunate series of weather events that have placed us where we are,” said Jockey Club executive director of racing Andrew Harding, pointing to abnormally high temperatures and rainfall in April.
“The track has a Bermuda grass which is dormant during winter and we sow over it with rye during the colder months. We’re now in that transition back from the winter grass to the summer grass.
“The summer grass has got to re-establish itself as the winter grass dies off but for that to really work well, we need sunlight and we haven’t been helped by the rain.
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“The high temperatures kill off the winter grass whilst the rainfall and lack of sunshine mean the summer grass can’t establish itself.
“In terms of the condition of the track [on Wednesday] night, there’s no question about safety. The decision to cancel the turf trials is just to do a bit more to help the surface, because as the summer grass does come through it’s important it establishes itself and the less traffic on it, the better.”
In other news, Romantic Warrior’s connections will meet on Friday to decide whether to finish the season with a trip to Japan for either the Group One Yasuda Kinen (1,600m) or the Group One Takarazuka Kinen (2,200m), while Ricky Yiu Poon-fai has confirmed he is “90 per cent sure at this stage” that Voyage Bubble will contest the Yasuda Kinen.
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