Race meet postponed

By Orville Clarke, Freelance Writer

Action from a recent racemeet at Caymanas Park.

DUE to continued unrest in the Corporate Area, the race meet scheduled for Caymanas Park today has been postponed to Friday, July 13 starting at 1:00 p.m.

The decision was taken by Caymanas Track Limited (CTL) yesterday in order to ensure the safety of all racing personnel, staff and the public who travel from all over Jamaica to Caymanas Park at its 70 Off-Track Betting Parlours.

Despite the absence of local racing today, CTL will provide its full schedule of simulcast races starting with English racing at 8:00 a.m. and American racing from Belmont Park, among others, in the afternoon.

In response, Vin Edwards, vice-president of the Jamaica Racehorse Trainers Association, said:

"We were not consulted about the postponement by CTL and with back-to-back race meets scheduled for Friday and Saturday it is going to be difficult for trainers".

Edwards emphasised that Friday is a bad day. "This is a day when people have to stay at work to receive their pay. A better option would be to abandon the meet," said the usually outspoken trainer.

His views, to some extent, were shared by bookmaker Egerton Chang, managing director of Capital Betting and Wagering Limited. Chang believes that the shift to Friday will affect his sales by 10 to 15 percent.

He based his arguments on the grounds that the back-to-back meets will not generate the type of excitement for his company to make a profit.

"The programme for Wednesday was excellent. It was the type of card that could generate returns for bookmakers. If you were to sell $10.00 on Wednesday and $15.00 Saturday, it will now mean that you could only get $20.00 out of the combined card because there would not be the same support on Friday as opposed to Saturday," explains Chang whose offices will now be closed today as unlike CTL and the island's leading bookmaker Track Price Plus they do not sell English or American racing.

But Karl Angell, executive manager racing at CTL, spelt out his company's position:

"We have to ensure the safety of people. If we were to run races today and something happens you would never hear the end of it. We cannot take chances and come raceday we don't have enough tote people to sell tickets as a lot of them live in the affected areas".

Nominations for the race meeting of Saturday, July 14 will be accepted as usual today at the Racing Office, with scratch time scheduled for tomorrow morning from 8:30 to 9:30.

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