JUST days after the official opening of the Bathurst Paceway, the Bathurst Harness Racing Club has been forced to call off tonight's meeting due to issues with the new venue's track surface.
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There had been some suggestions in the weeks leading up to the inaugural meeting and the grand opening on Sunday that a few sections of the track were soft underfoot for horses.
In the wake of the Sunday meeting the BHRC had been confident of solidifying some of the effected areas and getting them up to scratch by the time tonight's program started.
Just before lunchtime, however, it became apparent that this wasn't going to be a simple job.
"There were some issues on Sunday, it was soft in a few places and particularly in the front of the course, the sprint lane and also about three-wide from the inside of the track," BHRC chief executive officer Danny Dwyer said.
"We had trials there on Monday night and there weren't any real problems but we went to start a bit of remedial work today and realised fairly quickly that the job was going to be a lot bigger than we anticipated.
"The decision was made as early as possible to call the meeting off rather than risk the health of the horses and drivers."