Te Aroha Track Closer to Return
While locals worked around the Te Aroha track earlier this week, a number of horses from Shaun Clotworthy’s stable travelled to gallop there today (Wednesday) on a Good4 surface.
A small team of horses were ridden by Ace Lawson-Carroll, Hamish McNeil and Masa Hashizume with all riders complimentary post-trackwork. Trainer Shaun Clotworthy commented, “All three riders reported positively in terms of both the cambers and grass cover. They also rode both the 1600m and 1200m chutes noting that these areas blended in well with the course proper. The track was in good order and rode well.”
This followed feedback from club officials, the track manager and regional track advisor that they were very happy with the recent progress made and looked forward to resuming racing on the fully renovated course.
The next step will be to run a restricted number of barrier trials comprising Open and Maiden horses on Thursday 4 May with RIB representatives in attendance and senior riders taking part. After these trials there will also be horses schooling on the track as part of the return-to-racing schedule.
The first raceday is scheduled for Monday 5 June.
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Te Aroha Track Update
After a meeting last week, the Te Aroha track has not been cleared to race on in January or February. More work needs to be done around decompaction. This work will start next week with a four-week programme in place to reduce the compaction of the racing surface. The jump-outs scheduled for November and Trials scheduled on 1 December will not take place.
Although this is disappointing, it is important to resume racing with confidence and to present a safe racing surface for both horses and riders and if this takes an extra two or three months to do so it will be better for the club in the long run.
All going well racing will resume on 10 March.
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Thames Raceday 3 January
Due to the Te Aroha track being unavailable, there will not be a Thames Raceday in January.
The licence has been reallocated to Matamata and will be a Matamata Raceday.
However: The Coastwood Lockwood Thames Gold Cup will be held at Matamata on this day. The Matamata committee has kindly given the Thames Jockey Club the R75 1600 race for this.
Thames and Te Aroha Members are still more than welcome to attend this meeting.
The bus from Thames to Matamata will still run for the Thames members. Email jen@trac.co.nz to book your seat on the bus.
This change is for one year only. Thames will be back racing in Te Aroha in January 2024.
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Te Aroha Raceday 15 February
This licence has been reallocated to the Tauranga Racing Club and will be run as a Tauranga raceday.