months and there is no need for me to rush this area,” Mick added. “I know that may sound silly when we raced on a track that was only six months old, but that was out of necessity, this isn’t, so I can be a bit more patient with this.” So, post Carnival, is it burning the midnight oil for Mick and his team to get the track back into condition? Not exactly, as he explained, “The last race on Saturday was at quarter past 5. By the time we’d cleared everything from the track it was half past 5; at 6 o’clock we began mowing to 50mm, that finished at 2.00am and then we handed over to our contractor, McMahons, who came in on Sunday morning at 6.00am. They brought in seven operators, three coring machines and four de-thatchers (scarifiers). The corers were finished at
2.00pm and the scarifiers at 3.30pm - job done.” “We hire in to get the immediate
renovation work done straight after the meeting,” explained Mick. “If we did the work ourselves it would take a week; to get a contractor in to do it, it takes one day. Time is important, with the amount of racing we do, so the quicker we get the major renovation work done the better. We used to do it ourselves, and the guys loved doing it, but it is just the time factor after the Carnival. All the repair and renovation work throughout the rest of the year - dethatching, vertdraining, anything - we do ourselves.” And so, for Mick and his team, and Bruce for that matter, the 2007 Melbourne Spring Carnival was an unqualified success. All the upheaval,
stress and agonising had paid off. Mick modestly underplayed the outstanding achievements of everyone involved with his final comment, “It’s a long week, but rewarding when it goes well.” It would have been fitting to get an independent view from a local horse racing legend but, as the only one I was aware of was in Melbourne museum and incapable of commenting, for more reasons than one, I opted for someone current and quotable. “I was very impressed, it’s a big galloping track, with super consistency throughout the ground. There are not many better tracks in the world; if there are any, I can’t think of them.” Irish trainer, Aidan O’Brien, whose runner, Mahler, was one of the Melbourne Cup pre-race favourites, and finished third.
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