Warwick Farm trainer Peter Snowden, in charge of the massive Crown Lodge operation, considers that the delays to construction work at the west Sydney track in preparing the complex for the influx of horses from Randwick has created a ‘diabolical’ situation
Snowden has had 350 horses in training at Crown Lodge after the equine influenza shut-down of the track, which is similar to many of the Warwick Farm trainers with large numbers in their stables preparing for racing over late summer, autumn and winter carnivals.
These numbers will be added to when Randwick’s training precinct shuts down in the next total disruption for Sydney racing, when the Catholic religious week event takes over that course in June, July and August.
With Randwick closed for 10 weeks all the horses will be dispersed to Warwick Farm, and other tracks, for their winter and spring preparation.
To cope with the additional 450 plus horses at Warwick Farm a synthetic track is being put down, a tunnel built for OH & S reasons and access to the tracks, and additional stables built to accommodate the Randwick horses.
This has meant to facilitate the building of the tunnel under the track that trainers will not be allowed to work their horses in complete circuits, and they will have to stop and work in reverse to cover the required distance.
“We will only have three-quarters of the track to work on,” said Snowden on Sport 927 on Thursday.
“It is huge,” he said about the disruption.
“I believe that EI was bad, it was probably the worst thing I have ever been through, not only for the horses but it was a complete stop of your whole job and your whole way of life. It just stops and it was very demoralising.
“But we are back our feet, and then we have the worry of this track situation.
“When they put tunnels in other tracks they leave part of the track to work on, but with us they are going to cut right through all four tracks at the same time, so all we have got to work on is three-quarters of the track in a kind of horse shoe shape.
“We have got a thousand meters to work with, so it makes it very, very hard to get horses competitive for the good class races like Derby’s, and those sort of things, when you can only work a thousand meters at a time.
“We have got numbers too which makes it harder.
“We have got 500 horses to work on two grass tracks. Our course proper and A grass you really only do fast work (on them) like on any track
“When you have got a strip of grass fifty meters wide and 200 horses working on it, it will be like a ploughed paddock in twenty minutes.
“We are going to have these two grass tracks for four months with 500 horses on those tracks every morning,so it is not going to take too long before they are both dirt tracks and in bad shape.
“There are 500 horses in work now and the work is supposed to be finished by end of April, May at the latest.
“I don’t think they have ‘buckleys chance’ of having it done by then and if it is not done then there is 500 from Warwick Farm, plus 450 from Randwick coming, so you can image what the problems will be like if it is not finished with 900 plus horses here.
“It is a nightmare.
“Admittedly once it is all over we will have the facilities and they are saying we have to have a bit of pain before the gain,” he said.
Snowden said that he had options to take horses off Warwick Farm for training, but that they were ‘limited’ options.
“We cannot take every horse to another training centre,” he said.
He also said that the Warwick Farm trainers will be allowed to take horses to other tracks to work, but ‘ten of fifteen horses three times a week.’
Snowden said that the Australian Jockey Club, the owner of Warwick Farm, were aware of the problems, ‘but not the logistics of it.’
“They are compassionate and say ‘we will do what we can’, but there is not much you can do.
“It is just unfortunate that it has happened in such a short space of time. If they had been able to do half of it and leave two tracks open that would have given us something to work on. But because of the time frame they have to cut through all four tracks at once and we have just got nothing to work with.
“It is diabolical really, anyway what do you do?” he said.
The organising body for the Catholic religious event at Randwick, imposed on the Australian Jockey Club by the NSW state government, have taken some six months to reach a satisfactory agreement with the racing club over access to Randwick and restoring the track and training facilities.
The NSW and Federal governments have set up funding for the payment of the Warwick Farm work, but the delays in reaching commercial agreements have meant delays in the start of construction work.
Last week the state government released news that agreement had been reached with the Australian Jockey Club, and the signing of those documents was due to take place this week.
In the meantime funding had been released late last year to allow work to commence at Warwick Farm, but months later than originally expected. It is hoped that pre-fabrication of the tunnel and stabling off-site will allow fast tracking of the work to allow the completion dates to be met.