Geelong races “rocked off”

The return to racing on the Geelong synthetic track has ended in shambles today with the program abandoned after only one event was held.
It was to be the first meeting on the “ThoroughTrack” surface since October 7.
Since then there has been an on-going inquiry into the deaths of seven horses that had contested races there in the first 37 meetings since the track was opened as an all-weather surface.
That report was unable to arrive at any definitive conclusions after one and a half seasons racing at the track.
The track had recently been updated with two new drains which was only completed last week.
The meeting today was abandoned after jockeys complained about stones “the size of golf balls” on the racing surface.
Remarkably it was only cleared for racing after several trials were held there on Monday.
Today’s problems are certain to stagnate plans to build any more synthetic tracks.