By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua Turf Club (ATC) will be moving to ensure that all horses are vaccinated before racing returns to the Cassada Gardens Race Track.
This was the promise of horse owner and member of the racing fraternity, Dr Dwayne Thwaites, who reminded that although vaccinations is a regular part of the body’s routine, additional precautions must be taken against the deadly coronavirus.
“The animals have to go through so many different types of vaccines and I cannot foresee why we are having a dilemma about this when we know for years that all the animals, and even your animals traveling or even coming into your country, have to be vaccinated against all these different types of viruses that attack animals, and so all of our animals need to and have to be vaccinated,” he said.
In the meantime, Thwaites, who has made known his intentions to challenge for the body’s top post once constitutionally due elections are held, said efforts to upgrade the track continues.
“The rails should be here by next week, the end of the month, and we spent a lot of money buying all of that and the harrow is here; it’s up at the track so we could keep the surface good. One of our biggest problems in Antigua for many years is the surface, and I think that if we approach rebuilding by getting a proper surface and getting to the rails, then we could start by making that a platform to start doing better things for the horse racing,” he said.
Thwaites, owner of thoroughbreds Scrumpum and deceased Baba-Baba, said some aspects of the upgrades are proving a bit more troublesome than others.
“The photo finish camera, we’re trying to get that because we’ve had so many controversies at the race track about that. We’re enquiring about getting some sand from Barbuda and we have been trying to negotiate some kind of a deal but this political uprising over there is making it a little difficult for us,” the doctor said.
There has been no racing at the track in almost two years dues to numerous delays for a number of reasons.