Mungrup doubt after more Mt Barker track problems

Mt Barker Turf Club is in a race against time to have its track declared fit for the town’s biggest race meeting of the year on Sunday week, featuring the $100,000 Mungrup Stud Sprint.

The venue’s ongoing track problems were again in the headlines last week, with two sections of the Frost Park surface deemed unsafe by stewards midway through its meeting on Thursday.

Racing and Wagering WA will have representatives travel to Mt Barker on Monday to examine the track ahead of the Grapes and Gallops meeting, which draws thousands of people to the course in January each year.

RWWA racing general manager Charlotte Mills said the track inspection next week will determine if Mt Barker’s major meeting goes ahead.

“Our guys will be down on Monday to check the track,” Mills said.

“We have every intention for the Grapes and Gallops meeting to go ahead.

“This will give the club time to ensure the right maintenance has been done and get the track back to a safe standard.

“That is our focus at the moment, making sure that meeting goes ahead.”

The past few seasons have been a turbulent time for the MBTC.

The Mt Barker Cup meeting in 2016-17 was abandoned and a number of other meetings since have been lost or transferred to Albany.

A waterlogged section of the track caused problems in 2017-18 and in January last year Mt Barker lost a meeting due to dry patches on the track.

Last season’s Grapes and Gallops meeting was postponed to March due to extreme heat.

MBTC president Stephen Carter said the reticulation was a problem and the cost to fix the entire system was huge.

“We have ageing infrastructure, especially the reticulation,” Carter said.

“It’s a sprinkler issue because it’s too old but we need funds to re-do the lot. We’ve got to find these leaks, we have 23 stations with eight sprinklers per station so that’s 200 around the track and four went on us.

“It is a frustrating issue but if we had the time and money to re-do the reticulation we would, but that’s just not the case.”

Steward Mark Kemp confirmed two sections at the 1150m and 500m mark were deemed unsafe to race on following the completion of race 4 last week.

The final four races on the card were abandoned after riders reported inconsistency in the surface.

Initially stewards cancelled the two 1850m races and reduced the distance of a later race but further inspection ended any hope of further racing.