by Brian de Lore
Published 30 November 2019
The art of racecourse management goes mostly unnoticed until something goes wrong, and then all hell can break loose.
And then you get a season in which 24 meetings are lost to weather and track conditions, and the question arises – how many could have been saved with better resources and a bit more know how?
There is, perhaps, no-one in Australasia with more experience in fixing grass racecourses than 75-year-old retired racecourse manager John Jeffs who last week reflected on his lengthy and highly successful career of maintaining grass surfaces and keeping them in the best of condition to produce the best racing.
Jeffs was at the Karaka Ready To Run Sale assisting with the marketing of the Diamond Lodge draft, one of 17 sales he has attended this year on behalf of various vendors as ‘the marketer,’ a role perfect for the man who knows everyone in racing, has personality plus and instant recall on pedigrees and racehorses.
Sydney Turf Club Chairman and Tyreel Stud owner, the late Jim Fleming, talked Jeffs into the retirement role in 1998 and he’s been doing it ever since. And you don’t keep doing something like that for that length of time unless you’re good at it – but it was turf management that made Jeffs famous during his primary career.
“Drainage is the key, and that’s what we did in the old days,” explained Jeffs. “Gordon McVeigh at Ellerslie was also a great man for drainage, and when I took over Rosehill it was widely known as the worst wet weather track in Australia.”
“We spent a fortune on both Canterbury and Rosehill and turned them into the best-wet weather tracks in Australia, if not the world. You can drain a rice paddy field if you want to and if you do it right, it will work. You can drain anything, even a swamp.”
Draining the swamp is another story for another day. But as racing people debate the pros and cons of synthetic tracks, StrathAyr grass installations and drainage while also considering climate change and what the future holds, the John Jeff’s voice of experience is well worth an ear.
The Cowra born Jeffs began his career in 1972 at Rosehill and learned the art from people like the legendary George Johnson at Randwick and even our own Gordon McVeigh at Ellerslie. Jeffs says, “I don’t profess to know it all, but I do know that’s its 95 percent common sense, and only five percent theory and what works practically is what you stick with.”
Jeffs spent 17 years looking after the Sydney Turf Club courses of Rosehill and Canterbury before the Jockey Club in Hong Kong lured him to the colony in 1989 where he was course manager for five years, overseeing the installation of Sha Tin’s StrathAyr grass surface in 1990.
And in light of the Auckland Racing Club’s recent decision to go for drainage over an expensive StrathAyr, Jeffs just might be agreeing with them:
“I don’t say that StrathAyr doesn’t work – it works, but it works at a cost, says Jeffs. “People would phone me from all over the world about StrathAyr – USA, South Africa, Asia, Australia and I would try and be as honest and helpful as I could.
“I had to warn them that the upkeep and maintenance was the issue, not the track. The RHKJC could afford it – they had an unlimited budget. I’ve been home from Hong Kong a long time now, 20 years in fact, but in those days it was seven to eight times the cost of a conventional track.”
So what makes StrathAyr work in Jeffs’ opinion and why are we losing so many meetings to dangerous conditions after rain – the question was posed to Jeffs:
“StrathAyr works and what does the job is the sand in the correct proportion. To my mind looking after racecourses has gone backwards – we lived on the principle that it was 75% soil and 25% sand – the sand gives you the draining characteristics.
“Looking after tracks is not a perfect science, but we have lost the old original tracks. As I said, in my day it was 75/2, but today they have 25% soil and 75% sand – some are worse, as high as 10/90. What it has done has taken the uniformity out of the tracks.
“In Australia, they have to water courses and get them to a Dead 4 in the hope they’ll be a Good3 on race morning – Caulfield on Caulfield Cup day was a disaster – they tell me many horses left the course lame. It was just too hard.”
As a racing journalist in Sydney in the 1970s in Randwick’s heyday, witnessing the clashes of greats like Triton and Gunsynd who fought out their titanic Doncaster and Epsom Handicap battles on a racing surface then described as the best in the world, why was it now so different now?
”Randwick was renowned for its drainage and beautiful cushion of grass explained Jeffs. “It was built on pure white sand but over the years they removed all the sand, sealed it all off and introduced all these foreign types of soils from other locations and when they firm they firm like a brick., Randwick was the best in George’s day.
“George Johnson was legendary, and a great mentor to me – George had a sump system at Randwick down near the old ledger, and at times after a tropical storm there might be a foot of water covering the track. He would locate his sump plug under bricks beneath the surface of the track, and when they removed the bricks it was like pulling the plug in a bath.
“Melbourne has problems because they have gone sand mad,” continued Jeffs, “- too much sand. Now they have to water their tracks overnight or on race morning to make them forgiving – that’s not fair.
“The recent Melbourne Cup carnival was awful as far as the tracks were concerned. The first day had a bias, and on Melbourne Cup day they left the rail in the true position and every winner pretty much on the day came through on the fence. Then they moved it out for the Thursday and Saturday.
“Gordon McVeigh’s tracks were real tracks – has Ellerslie been as good since Gordon? – I don’t think so. McVeigh used the roller between races as I always did – it helped to put the divets back in addition to having 20-25 people replacing divets – and now no one rolls the tracks between races.”
Times have changed all aspects of racing, and through Jeffs’ eyes and experience, advancements in turf management have not always produced improvements:
“The jury is still out on synthetic tracks, but there’s a very good one in Canberra. It’s called a Thoroughtrack. Warwick Farm also has a good synthetic training track, but they have still experienced problems. There are three types of synthetic tracks; the main two being Polytrack and Proride.
“Today track managers go to conferences to listen to the academics, and that’s the problem. Too many academics having too much say. Academia has infiltrated everywhere – it’s now running racing, but we need to get back to the grassroots if you excuse the pun.
“What happened at Eagle Farm is that they appeared to use the wrong shape of sand. It wasn’t cohesive enough because sand grains are all different shapes and the best analogy is to look at a beach – you walk along the beach and where is the best place to walk? Down by the water where all the fines go – they are filtered down to the water, and the course sand stays higher. Every time the tide comes in its filtering sand. It’s the shape of the sand – and any geologist will tell you that – but I’m not a guru, I’m a practical man.
“Course sand also has its place – take a track like Bathurst or Orange – they would spread it slowly and evenly, and that was giving the track a platform to grow the grass through.
“I used to get my staff at Rosehill and Canterbury to spread course river sand in the areas the horses would jump from the barrier – sprayit on and in the following weeks we’d do it again and it was building a platform that the grass could grow through and wasn’t cutting the track out.
“Sand slitting really helps – we did a lot of it – Te Rapa has done it correctly and is said to be one of the best all-weather tracks. Avondale is good because it’s a conventional track and the drainage has been done properly – it takes the surface water away but not every bit of moisture.
“In my opinion, Kikuyu grass is the best grass for racetracks if you can get it to grow. I tried to get it to grow in Hong Kong but couldn’t – it’s a native of South Africa. It needed diurnal temperature variation so it can switch off and sleep, but in Hong Kong, it didn’t get that variation – too hot all the time.
“We got it to grow, but as soon as you put it out on the track, it would die fairly quickly.
“Moonee Valley had the best Kikuyu which was near where the commentator used to say ‘up by the school,’ but they took it out and introduced some other varieties – some university graduate who would say ‘this other grass is what you should be using.’
“I’d love to be 20 years younger, and I would come to New Zealand and help out with these problem tracks – I don’t want to be the man in charge anymore, but I am always happy to give some advice if it was wanted. But if I went somewhere, it would be one ship and only one captain.”
