THE fate of the Albury Gold Cup carnival rests on a decision by Racing NSW in coming days after the $1.2 million track renovation passed a major test on Saturday.
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The five-race comeback meeting proceeded without incident with the only obvious sign of the recent works being some sand kick-back in the home straight.
Southern Districts chief steward John Davidson said he expected the NSW Country Championships qualifier meet on March 19 and the Gold Cup meeting five days later to go ahead, but he wouldn’t make the final call.
Senior jockey Brendan Ward, who returned to the Border to ride in three races at Albury, said the track was safe.
Racing NSW racecourse maintenance manager David Hodgson was on course again for the first meeting since June last year and his feedback would also be sought before a final call was made.
Mr Davidson said the sand kick-back was noticeable, but not unexpected as a similar thing happened at Wagga when the most recent works were carried out.
“The feedback from riders was reasonably positive and I’m quite confident without it being official it will be onwards and upwards,” he said.
“This track will be a far better track in six to 12 months time, but is what it is at the moment.
“I think we will be going ahead, but there are still a couple of boxes to tick and one of them is to have a look at the long-range weather forecast.
“Clearly with kick-back you don’t want rain.
“The track was safe today and obviously we had smaller fields and it will be a much bigger test for the championships when you have fields of 16 and eight races.”
Ward said the next two weeks would be crucial as far as weather was concerned.
“If we get rain this week it will be fine, but if you get significant rain leading up to the championships it could be a problem,” he said.
“As far as the track goes it is safe enough.
“It would have been ideal if we had a bit more time, but we don’t.”
Track staff carried out post-race work on the track on Saturday night including rolling and watering which normally would be done several days after a meeting.
The Luke Pepper-trained Callistan won the first race on the new track, the Maiden Handicap, with Callistan from a newly created 1500m chute.
The biggest race field on Saturday was nine in the Benchmark 50 Hcp (1600m).