Mother Nature has not been a kind beast to Racing Orange in recent years and that trend’s continued into season 2016-17 – the organisation’s scheduled opening meet on Friday was postponed late last week.
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There’s been seemingly countless meetings postponed or cancelled at Towac Park in the last few seasons and thanks to the recent weather conditions Friday’s meet is the newest casualty.
Racing Orange executive officer Gavin Pilossof expressed his disappointment but was realistic, considering the weather around the region the meet has been in doubt for some time.
“We’ve had almost 950 millimetres of rain at Towac Park since May, that’s a lot of water, and about 240 of that has been in September alone,” Pilossof said.
As one would expect, that amount of rain has “waterlogged” the refurbished Towac Park track.
The biggest problem of all is the helpless situation that puts the track’s groundsmen in, Pilossof said.
“The track is just waterlogged. The problem is we can’t get on to the track to do anything without damaging it, so we’re sort of stuck on the sidelines,” he explained.
“It is very disappointing. It’s colder in Orange, so the track won’t dry out as quickly as say Dubbo or Wellington and that makes it difficult at times as well.
“The new date for the meeting hasn’t been confirmed but we will make up the meeting somewhere later in the season.”
The postponement means Racing Orange will “kick off the season with a bang” as Pilossof said, with its Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday, November 1.
Traditionally the Melbourne Cup meet is a massive one for Racing Orange and Pilossof said he’s expecting 2016 to be no different.
“It does mean Melbourne Cup is our opener, we’ll kick off the season with a bang,” Pilossof enthused, looking at the bright side.
“The planning has already begun for that, we’re getting all the packages together and we’re also in the process of getting our new website up and running.
“When that goes live shortly everyone can jump on and check out the packages we have on offer and what the Melbourne Cup Day will entail.”
Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
