THE Jack Maher Classic will be held in May next year after wet weather forced Sunday’s race meeting in Wodonga to be abandoned.
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The Wodonga track has received more than 100mm of rain in the past month and Racing Victoria officials deemed it was unsuitable for action.
It is the second year in a row the feature meeting has been hijacked by wet weather, with the 2015 running pushed back three days after a week-long deluge made the track unsafe for racing.
Wodonga general manager Tom O’Connor said the club was unable to postpone the classic for two-year-olds this year because, with the race scheduled for July 31, the horses would be too old by Monday when the new year rolls around.
O’Connor said next year’s Jack Maher Classic would be run on Saturday, May 20 as the club sought to protect one of its feature race meets.
“It’s pretty disappointing but there’s not a great deal we can do with all the rain we’ve had throughout June and July,” he said.
“It’s caused a bit of havoc – it’s knocked everyone around.
“Terry Maher told me we once had two Jack Maher Classics in one year so now we are even.
“We want to shore it up for years on end, that’s why we’ve moved it to May from next year.
“It’s a slightly better month as far as rainfall goes and it will allow our local trainers to prepare their two-year-olds a lot better for a race in May rather than a race in July.
“Two-year-olds need a lot of training and they need to be educated on the grass.
“A lot of our trainers haven’t had grass access for six weeks now and it’s not ideal for them to prepare a young horse for a race meeting.
“We’re hoping come next year, they’ll have March, April without too much hindrance as far as grass access goes to prepare their young ones for a real go at the meeting in May.”
O’Connor said the race club would now turn its attention to hosting the Border Caravan and Camping Expo from August 12-14.
He said the race club was working with expo organisers to ensure that a members day, normally run in conjunction with the Jack Maher Classic, went ahead on Saturday, August 13.
Executive general manager Greg Carpenter said Racing Victoria was keen to program a new meeting in the North East on Thursday, Friday or Sunday next week but track availability will depend on the amount of rain that falls in that period.
Carpenter said a decision would be made on Monday whether a suitable track was available for a replacement meeting.
Meanwhile, a meeting scheduled for Albury on August 5 has been transferred to Wagga.