Cyclone Gabrielle wreaks havoc with New Zealand racing
On Monday afternoon, New Zealand horse racing officials made an early call to abandon the Tauranga race meeting that was scheduled to be held on Wednesday.
The decision comes due to the current storm that has and continues to cause major flooding and related damage across the top of the North Island, while no doubt taking into account that Cyclone Gabrielle is still to make its arrival.
The Tauranga race meeting that was scheduled to be held on Wednesday, is set to be replaced with a seven-race programme to be held on the Cambridge Synthetic on Thursday, February 16.
Sadly history has repeated itself as Tauranga lost one of their 12 race-days in February last season due to weather-related issues.
With further rain expected throughout the week, more meetings are expected to impacted, including Saturday’s thoroughbred meeting at Pukekohe Park where the Group 2 Avondale Guineas and Group 2 Avondale Cup headline the action.
The Pukekohe Park race track is currently rated a Heavy 9 on Tuesday morning.
It is not just the horse racing industry that has seen meetings affected, with the Auckland Cup greyhound meeting that was scheduled to be held on Thursday, February 16, being postponed to Sunday, March 26.
For harness racing fans, the news is not much better either.
The impact of damage and flooding caused by Cyclone Gabrielle has resulted in Tuesday’s harness racing meeting at Manawatu to be abandoned due to safety concerns.
Rescheduling options are currently being explored for this meeting.
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