By DAVID NAGEL
CRANBOURNE Training Complex will accommodate trainers from Pakenham in the early part of next year after news that the Pakenham Racing Club’s brand-new $70 million facility at Tynong is months behind schedule.
The PRC’s existing Racecourse Road facility will close after the Pakenham Cup meeting on 9 February next year, with the trainers expected to move into their swank new home on 22 February.
Bad weather has caused a delay in construction of the Tynong complex, forcing local trainers to look for alternate training facilities.
Cranbourne Turf Club chief executive Neil Bainbridge has been in talks with his Pakenham counterpart Michael Hodge and it’s been agreed the clubs will work closely together through the PRC’s transitional stage.
“Cranbourne’s in a position where it can help racing participants from Pakenham to get through that transitional phase and we’re more than happy to do so,” Bainbridge said.
“It’s all about participation. Trainers need to keep their owners happy and they can only do that through training and racing their horses for money. There are a few logistics we need to work through, but we’re happy to help out.”
Around 650 to 700 horses use the Cranbourne facility on a daily basis. With those numbers likely to swell and with only 468 tie-up stalls available, co-ordinating those growing numbers will undoubtedly be the biggest challenge the club needs to deal with.
“We may need to pre-arrange days and times with the Pakenham trainers, but that depends on the numbers coming across,” Bainbridge said.
“The facility opens at 3.30am and some trainers are out by 5am, it’s just a matter of co-ordination.”
Pakenham Trainers Association president John Gunning said while the situation was not ideal, everything was being done to limit the inconvenience.
“They’re going out of their way to help us,” Gunning said.
“We’re all inconvenienced, but it’s happened and we just need to get on with things the best way we can. If you’re building a new home or whatever it is you do, sometimes you get behind schedule; we just need to get on with it.”
Gunning said the impact of a move to Cranbourne had been softened significantly by the support shown by Cranbourne and the racing industry as a whole.
“If we go to Cranbourne, we won’t be treated like an outside trainer when we go there,” he said. “The fees can be three times more for an outside trainer than an in-house trainer. They’ll treat us as an equal over there.
“We’ll need their support even after we move to the new track. We won’t have a grass track until about six months after the move, so we’ll rely on their support for grass-gallops and jump outs.”
Pakenham trainers will be hoping some of the magic of the facility rubs off with 20 Cranbourne trainers combining for a staggering 34 winners in the last 10 days.
