Winx will be racing on hallowed turf when she aims at enhancing her already incredible record by winning a fourth consecutive Cox Plate at Mooee Valley.
For since the track was put down in 1995 by StrathAyr Turf Systems – the company now operates as StrathAyr Turf Solutions – it has been regarded as one of the globe’s finest racing surfaces.
One of the first to appreciate the benefits of racing on the StrathAyr was the late Bart Cummings, whose 266 Group 1 victories included five Cox Plate successes.
“Over the years there has been a lot of talk about artificial tracks and all-weather tracks but in my opinion the StrathAyr track at Moonee Valley can’t be beaten,” Cummings went on record as saying.
“It doesn’t matter whether there is heavy rain or a drought the tracks at Moonee Valley and at other courses where StrathAyr has been installed, are always reliable.”
In the view of Cummings the yield in StrathAyr surfaces encourages horses to “let down and produce their absolute best.”
“The horses love it and so do all true horse people for that matter,” he added.
It was in 1988, after extensive research and development by the then StrathAyr Turf Systems, that the Hong Kong Jockey Club pioneered the use of company’s technique at its tracks at the Sha Tin and Happy Valley racecourses.
The all-weather concept, which has been continually refined over the years since, was introduced with the objective of providing an extremely resilient safe and long-lasting natural grass surface for horse racing.
The specifically-engineered profile consists of a gravel and pipes base, a lower layer of sand and an upper rootzone layer reinforced with unique Reflex mesh elements.
A natural turf racetrack, which combines remarkable surface strength, excellent drainage and improved grass growth is the end result of all this.
With Sha Tin, Happy Valley and Moonee Valley being acclaimed around the racing world the Singapore Turf Club followed the lead in 1999 when it put down the StrathAyr surface at its newly created Kranji racecourse.
In 2008 the Tasmanian Turf Club installed StrathAyr’s product at Mowbray and as did the planet’s racing powerhouse Godolphin two years later at its training centre at Agnes Banks in New South Wales.
Being chosen as the surface of choice by Godolphin was an exceptional coup for the company, which has its head office at Richmond in Tasmania.
Over the next five years the Mackay Turf Club, the Moe Racing Club, Toowoomba Turf Club and Newcastle Jockey Club contracted StrathAyr to construct new racing surfaces at their courses.
In a further and highly significant display of confidence the Hong Kong Jockey Club has put down StrathAyr at its Hong Kong Jockey Club Training Centre at Conghua in China.
This work, which was done in 2017 and into this year, has since been receiving very positive praise from those using the training centre.
