Final Field WSB Grand Heritage

Think they need rain soon

Bob Brogan wrote: Think they need rain soon

......yeah maybe those very flush PHUM gravy train okes..... can bring back some of those notorious Singapore showers back in their hand luggage....:evil:

Hearing a call could be made soon on the meeting

......whaaaat....and switch venues again...off to Turffies again and.have half the field run on the outside track and the other half on the inner..:S ...piss poor planning....and has little to do with the weather as it hardly ever rains in September anymore..... a planned maintenance programme with river water pumping onto the turf could have saved the day....too late that they only started this week...hope they enjoy the jol in Singapore as it may be the best racing we see this year....let them all see how racing is supposed to be run... then help get our owners to start racing our horses there and send more of our top jocks and a trainer or two too....because our local talent is being wasted on a piss poor infrastructure run into the ground through pure and simple corporate greed....:blush:

There was a bad frost at the Vaal, two or three days in a row that killed the grass growth.

RIVERJ wrote: There was a bad frost at the Vaal, two or three days in a row that killed the grass growth.

.......again that is a poor excuse....our highvelt tracks are prone to frost every year ....it happens in winter every year.....it kills the grass....yet the grass is revived through a maintenance programme.....on that note I see in their bid to repair the track they have plastic sheeting on the track/////FFS now they splurge at a cost for this material.....if they bought this sheeting earlier and had the staff on hand to lay it.... they could have used it as a frost blanket and at least save one track.....there is only one excuse for this travesty.....pure plain corporate greed.....:dry:

After watching Zouaves " prep " run 2 weeks ago , i make this , the one to beat :woohoo:

Bob Brogan wrote: Hearing a call could be made soon on the meeting

I would postpone the meeting by a week in order for the track to recover properly after the heavy frost they had

....doubt that a week postponement will do the trick....this frost story is just another poor excuse....the reason why those holes or burrows were there to be photographed last week is because there is very little human day time activity on track and those burrowing insect eaters are overly active in their absence ....had staff been around they would have noticed the problems and not left for race day participants to observe first hand .....and while racing on one track was going ahead there should have been maintenance action on the other.....increased race programmes in the absence of the sand track should have had the maintenance progammes increased to meet the demand.....instead they were decreased to try save a buck ....penny wise pound foolish....now look at the extra costs it will take to try restore these tracks.....:ohmy:

PHUMELELA MEDIA RELEASE
SUBJECT: Vaal on track for Grand Heritage
DATE: Friday 21 September 2018
RELEASED BY: Phumelela Gaming

Recent frost and cold night temperatures have retarded grass growth at Vaal Racecourse and necessitated switching two fixtures from the Vaal Classic track to Turffontein, but the Vaal 1600m straight surface should be ready for the Grand Heritage race meeting on Saturday 29 September.
Thomas Rasasamola, Phumelela’s senior track manager, buoyed by the forecast of much warmer temperatures in the days leading up to the race, said: “We had a similar experience prior to last year’s running of the Grand Heritage, but fortunately warmer night temperatures came in the nick of time, spurring grass growth and boosting recovery.”
Cape Town-based Dean Diedericks, Phumelela’s national tracks manager, will continue to assist and will be in Johannesburg from Sunday to monitor progress.

.....had late frost been the problem as they say.....then there would not have been any below surface insect larvae activity for those insect eating Yellow Mongoose to resort to start digging to get at them.....they can try to circle around the plain fact that the lack of track maintenance due to budget cuts has now resulted in reactive course management.....when a more proactive programme should have been implemented.....:huh:

Hearing decisions made on Tuesday