The dark clouds surrounding the $14.5 million Magic Millions meeting on the Gold Coast have – metaphorically at least - cleared with confirmation that the raceday will progress at its original location.
In what has been a dramatic build-up to the Gold Coast Turf Club’s marquee meeting, a section of the track around the 500-metre mark was poisoned last week, prompting the rapid relocation on last Saturday’s key lead-up meeting to the Sunshine Coast.
Emergency turf works have been conducted throughout the week and six horses ridden by experienced jockeys tested out the integrity of the new section in a full-pace race simulation on Thursday morning.
After a 30-minute consultation between the jockeys, club officials, Racing Queensland chief executive Jason Scott, Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch and integrity official Kim Kelly, it was determined the race meeting would progress on the Gold Coast on Saturday, and would not be relocated to Eagle Farm.
“I’m delighted to report that the new patch of track played exactly the same as the rest of the track we'll be racing here on Saturday,” Scott said after the meeting.
“Kim Kelly, the ex-chief steward in Brisbane, Sydney, Hong Kong, current deputy commissioner of QRIC, commented that it marked the track as little in that period as it did on the rest of the track, so we're right to go.”
“The six jockeys were happy. Vlad Duric commented that the track is absolutely perfect.”
It is hopefully the end of a long saga, which caused major headaches and tension between all stakeholders. However, forecast rain could yet play its part. Scott’s press conference on Thursday morning was brought to a rapid halt by a tropical downpour.
“You can't control the rain. Flemington don't panic when it's raining on the Sunday before Melbourne Cup, so we'll put up with whatever happens. But I can assure you, if there is any problems with rain on the track, it won't be because of that square,” Scott said.
The race club engaged turf experts as early as last Saturday to remedy the problem and Scott praised their quick action.
“Full congratulations, commendations to the guys from the track that have been working, to the contractors we engage who like to stay out of the limelight,” he said.
“What we've managed to achieve here since getting these trucks rolling on Saturday afternoon, to have an eight by 25-metre part of turf in an absolutely crucial part of the racetrack is just amazing.
Aushorse Investor’s Guide 2025
- More Races worth $1 million+ than Europe & America combined
- More than 140,000 Australians involved in racehorse ownership
“It’s a fantastic day for all of us, and we'll see you at the Gold Coast on Saturday.”
Scott said the fact that the track had been re-laid in 2023 made it more straightforward to utilise replacement turf on the impacted section.
“Basically what we did is they levelled out the area, almost down to the base. They were pulling blocks of 1,200 wide, 4 metres long and probably 100 (mm) deep,” he said.
“Now, normally you go more than 100 deep. This is pretty immature grass because it hasn't been here very long, so you've really only got to get to the bottom of the roots. There's no point going any deeper.
“They laid it down, and they've got this high-tech machinery. In actual fact, it's world-leading machinery because the equipment that they've got now is even better than what they used in Flemington in 2022, and it pushes it together and squishes it in.”
Any dark clouds over the staging of the raceday now appear to be literally that. The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting up to 15mm of rain on Thursday, 10mm on Friday and anything between three and 30mm on Saturday.
Scott said earlier this week that anything more than 40mm would be concerning. The downpour which ended the press conference on Thursday was around 10mm.
Warwick Barr
Police and race club investigations into the circumstances which led to the section of the track being poisoned are continuing with no results expected until at least next week.
The club has suspected vandalism all along, despite suggestions earlier this week from Scott and Magic Millions owner Gerry Harvey that it wasn’t a deliberate action.
