City Maidens Get Chance To Shine At Sandown

The Age

Saturday January 5, 2008

Andrew Eddy with West Australian

THERE have again been a few grumblings of discontent from racing devotees this week over today's restricted meeting at Sandown Lakeside. But you won't hear a word of complaint from the owners of the 107 horses to accept for the meeting or from the Melbourne Racing Club.

The restricted conditions of the eight-race program detail that a horse is disqualified from running at the meeting if it has previously won a city race. So we have 103 city maidens on display, racing for substantial first prizes of $36,400 in each race.

Purists may sneer but the MRC was delighted with its restricted card at the corresponding Saturday meeting last year. A couple of emerging horses won that day including subsequent Kilmore Cup winner At The Oasis, but for the club, the conditions offered much more than second-tier horses a chance at city success.

At the 2006 meeting, only 61 horses raced at Sandown for an average of 7.6 runners a race, with five of the races having fewer than eight starters. Last year, there were 93 runners at an average of 11.6 a race with no races having fewer than eight starters.

The real bonus came as the results were tallied at the end of the meeting. Betting turnover was up 22% on the regular meeting of 12 months prior.

"Having this restricted meeting means that the open-class city horses that may have started on Boxing Day or New Year's Day will instead run next Saturday (at the MRC's Caulfield racecourse) and it has been that meeting that had very small fields before the change last year," the club's racing manager, John Faulkner, said yesterday.

In 2006, at the corresponding open-class meeting to next week's at Caulfield, the club had one of its worst cards in history. There were just 54 starters at an average of 6.8 runners a race with seven of the eight races having fewer than eight runners.

But last year, after the change of conditions to the restricted meeting the previous week, there were 74 runners at 9.4 starters a race with just one race of fewer than eight runners. Plus, the betting turnover last year was up 44% on the miserable return of 12 months earlier.

? David Hayes' Melbourne apprentice Dean Holland yesterday lost his appeal to the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board against a careless riding charge from last Saturday's Moonee Valley meeting. He will be available to ride again from January 12.

? An inquiry yesterday laid the blame for the six-horse fall in Tuesday's Perth Cup at Ascot at the feet of apprentice Chloe Chatfield, who was suspended for 10 weeks.

Chatfield, 19, was found guilty of careless riding, which the stewards said resulted in the crash that left two horses dead and three jockeys in hospital with minor injuries.

An emotional Chatfield pleaded not guilty and said other runners had contributed to the fall. "The fall is not entirely my fault. A lot of horses were racing keenly from the start," she said.

Stewards had to stop taking evidence when Chatfield, who rode Rossam into ninth place in the cup, broke down in the hearing room. "I'm not in the frame of mind to speak," Chatfield said.

Chief steward Brad Lewis then adjourned the inquiry for 10 minutes and allowed Chatfield to speak to her employer, trainer Duane Kitchingman.

Outside the inquiry, Kitchingman said: "I believe a slackening of the pace caused the problems." -- With WEST AUSTRALIAN

© 2008 The Age

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