NOT A GOOD START DOWN UNDER

NEWS Saturday 4th January 2020, 1:28pm

by PR TEAM

  Edinburgh Monarchs

It wasn't a good start to the Australian Championship at Kurri Kurri on Saturday evening with the meeting abandoned after four races due to an unsatisfactory track.

It was a blistering hot day, with temperatures in excess of 40 degrees, and we well know how difficult it is to prepare in hot weather, even in our modest temperatures. The start of the meeting was delayed an hour to allow the temperatures to reduce a little and less than two hours later, at 10.20 local time, the meeting was abandoned.

Our Australian correspondent, Howard Williams, sent us this brief report after the meeting, " Not a lot to say really. Josh Pickering won in a canter in heat 3 and nearly broke the track record. Then after one attempt to run heat 5 and after Jye Etheridge fell it was all over and the meeting was abandoned. Depending on who you talk to you get different views, some say they didn't think the track was all that bad yet others say it was the right call. To be fair it had been 45C during the day and impossible to get enough water into. The main complaint seemed be that the track was too patchy and unsafe."

So it's off to Albury in Victoria on Monday for the second round.