Racing Orange's Towac Christmas Party meeting scheduled for Monday afternoon has officially been moved to Bathurst as the devastating effects of the ongoing drought continue to impact the Central and Western Districts tracks.
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Racing Orange executive officer Bree McMinn confirmed the Towac Park track is simply too hard and too dry to facilitate a meeting next Monday, the call to shift the seven-race program to the neighbouring Tyers Park was made earlier this week in conjunction with Racing NSW, on advice from stewards.
"Sadly the lack of rainfall is impacting us all and the track is just too dry and too hard to race on at the moment, but we're definitely still very hopeful of hanging in there and being able to host our next meeting as scheduled," McMinn said.
That next meeting, Racing Orange's usual pre-New Year's Eve Family Fun Day, is set down for Monday, December 30, which is quickly followed by another on Tuesday, January 7.
Although Towac Park has been able to host meeting as per schedule for some time now the meeting shift spurs memories of its former battles with Mother Nature, although on the other side of the ledger.
Through 2014 and 2015 in particular Racing Orange's track battled to handle the amount of rainfall it received, quite often the heavens opened in the lead-up to or on days of scheduled meetings and forced cancellations.
It's not the first meeting to be moved recently, in fact Dubbo Turf Club was forced to move its meeting earlier this week to Wellington thanks to the dry nature of its course.
That call was largely made to ensure the club's Chill-Rite Daikin Christmas Twilight Party meeting on December 21 would be able to go ahead as planned, afterwards Dubbo Turf Club general manager Vince Gordon predicted the same would happen elsewhere.
That proved to be true and even with late shift to Tyers Park Monday's meeting has received reasonable nominations, with 62 acceptors rolling in for the seven-race, $154,000 program, from 100 total nominations.
The $32,000 Allandale Stud Cup, won last year by Cameron Crockett's Meraki Miss, was scheduled to be run on Monday at Towac Park. The fourth next week will be worth the same amount, however it is unconfirmed if the cup will be offer across the 1400-metre main event.
Orange's Alex Van Den Bos has veteran Beau Hoffa lining up in that fourth race of the afternoon after a third finish over the same trip at Wellington this week.
Beau Hoffa's only run over 1400 at Tyers Park resulted in his 2018 Soldier's Saddle win and the seven-year-old has been building through this preparation, with back-to-back fourth finishes prior to Monday's minor placing.
Jake Pracey-Holmes was in the saddle when Beau Hoffa claimed that crown and will have the gig for Van Den Bos again on Monday, where they'll take on the likes of Greg Hook's Subway Surfer, Nick Olive's Contaminated and Darren Hyde's Mr Epic.
Van Den Bos is Orange's lone hope at the now-Bathurst meeting, although former Towac Park-based Golden Slipper champion Gary Portelli has a handful of chances too.