Eagle Farm is looming as an alternative venue to stage the rich Magic Millions meeting if a section of the Gold Coast course proper can’t be fixed within the next few days.
Gold Coast Turf Club (GCTC) officials are in a frantic race to repair an area of the racetrack at the 500m mark ahead of the $14.5 million raceday on Saturday.
They were forced into an 11th-hour transfer of last Saturday’s important lead-up meeting to the Sunshine Coast after a 25m by 10m part of the track was unsuitable for racing because of an apparent poisoning issue.
Racing Queensland (RQ) has given a midweek deadline for the GCTC to complete remedial work on the surface as Victoria Racing Club track manager Liam O’Keeffe answered as SOS to help save Queensland’s richest raceday from being switched to Eagle Farm.
O'Keeffe and his Flemington staff rescued Melbourne Cup day in 2022 after an anti-racing protestor poured oil on the racetrack just hours before Australia’s greatest race.
He repaired the damaged section to allow the meeting to go ahead before it was relaid with new turf ahead of the VRC Oaks card two days later.
"We are going to make every endeavour to run there (at the Gold Coast),” RQ chief executive Jason Scott told SENTrack.
Tim Rowe
“They tell me they can have it (repair work done) by Tuesday night - Wednesday morning at the worst - and then we need to put some horses over it."
"We will make a decision by Thursday morning. We won't drag this on."
Scott said talks between Magic Millions organisers, the GCTC and RQ would decide on a contingency plan but he favoured Eagle Farm over the Sunshine Coast as a replacement track despite the success of last week’s transferred twilight meeting.
“There will be four parties involved in this but probably the most important are the stewards. In the end, it's their decision whether a race meeting's safe,” he said.
“It's not a night meeting, it's run in the afternoon and it seems to be a bit more logical for everybody involved (to hold the meeting at Eagle Farm).
“We also have the advantage this year that Magic Millions had already decided not to have a Saturday night sales session.”
The GCTC was expected to interview staff for a second time as speculation continued about how the track was damaged on the eve of a meeting that attracts significant international attention.
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But Scott has almost certainly ruled out foul play after media reports claimed the track had been sabotaged.
“I’d be surprised if it was vandals,” Scott said.
“I've had one of the animal (rights) groups reach out to me and they're offended that they've been tarred with that brush because they've said that the last thing they want to do is injure horses.
“I don't know where (the story) emanated, but I would have preferred we didn't have that narrative.
“If it has been a mistake, I'm sure there's someone feeling very guilty within the club.
Warwick Barr
“I know the club has spoken to many of the staff and there might be a second round of that today (Monday).”
The drama is the latest issue that has impacted the Gold Coast course proper, continuing a recent disastrous association with Magic Magic meetings.
In 2023, then-track manager Nevesh Ramdhani blamed a rogue sprinkler for an overwatered section of the racetrack that forced the meeting to be postponed after two races.
Re-opened last January after a major reconstruction, the track was closed again in March when jockeys said their mounts were impeded because of too much surface kickback.
The GCTC’s premier winter carnival meeting was transferred to the Sunshine Coast and plans to stage a night meeting Magic Millions raceday eve were abandoned in a bid to protect the course proper.
Bren O’Brien
Racing returned to the Gold Coast course proper in September.
“I tend to think they’ve been really unlucky but having said that, Racing Queensland and the Gokd Coast Turf Club need to have a really strong debrief at the end of this and work out what we need to make sure these things don’t continue to happen,” Scott said.
