By Neto Baptiste
Work is set to commence at the Cassada Gardens Race Track within two weeks in hopes of bringing competitive racing back the country’s lone facility.
This is according to President of the Antigua Turf club (ATC), Hansen Richards, who however stopped short of identifying a targeted date for the sport’s return.
“Within a next two weeks we should commence work at the track in terms of taking down the rails because we have to remove the rotten rails and so forth. The PVC rails that we got from the manufacture two years ago, those will be erected before any racing commences so when you get to the track, the track will be reshaped as well as re-railed for a better environment for the horses as well as the patron area where we are looking to renovate certain areas,” he said.
Richards, elected three months ago, said the new executive was met with a stop-order from DCA stating that no work was to be done at the track until a report from the environment division was submitted regarding a pond at facility.
He said this has prevented the body from doing much in terms of work at the track.
“From since then they have guided me throughout the process and I can say now that a week or so ago, we received the approval, in principle, to proceed with work. The approval in principle doesn’t mean we can go and break down and do as we like because we still have to go through the proper procedures of submitting the various documents of what we need to get done before we commence with any work,” he said.
Questioned about the current horse stock or lack thereof, Richards said he is not worried about the numbers as plans are already in motion to remedy the situation.
“We had some horses being imported into Antigua and we do have some existing stock. I have five and if we were to do a count at the moment we would have about 30 horses and you can get six races with 30 horses and with how Antigua is, interest is always peaked when things are happening so you use that to get the interest back and more horses will be imported,” he said.
Richards, in May, was elected unopposed as president when the body held its first electoral congress since 2018 at JR’s Sports Bar and Grill located on Friars Hill Road.
