More Saturdays for Sunshine Coast

Ongoing delays with a return to racing at Eagle Farm are expected to mean more Saturday meetings at the Sunshine Coast in the new season.

Racing Queensland is working on plans for metropolitan racing and barrier trials to cover for Eagle Farm which has been dormant for most of the past four years

At best Eagle Farm could be back in December but even then it will have a light workload for some time.

RQ’s chief executive Brendan Parnell confirmed the option was being considered and would be implemented at some stage.

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“We want to help Doomben while Eagle Farm is out of order and even when Eagle Farm is back we have to be careful to protect all tracks,” Parnell said.

RQ is likely transfer some Sunshine Coast Sunday meetings to other tracks to free the SCTC for the Saturdays and is also keen to get synthetic track training tracks at probably the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.

After problems arose with the Eagle Farm A grass last week an inspection will be held Monday to see if the B grass can be used for trials.

It will determine whether the track conforms to standards to allow jump-outs for fields up to six horses over 1100m and 900m.

Trainers were furious after trials on the A grass last week had to be switched to the dirt after the track surface chopped up badly.