Racing Victoria will send track specialists to Benalla to do a full review of the circumstances that led to the abandonment of Friday’s final two races.

After the sixth race, Linda Meech raised concerns that her mount Jazz Musician had lost her footing near the 1100m mark.

A deputation of jockeys and stewards inspected the area and a patch of the track was found to be wet despite the rest of the surface being dry.

Jockeys then voted not to continue riding.

Victorian Jockeys Association chief executive Des O’Keeffe said jockeys were concerned and disappointed that an issue had arisen again.

“I just don’t know how Racing Victoria is going to convince jockeys that this track is safe to go to work on,” O’Keeffe said.

“It is going to take a lot of convincing.

“The track has been horrible going back to the Jason Benbow incident when his horse put its foot in a hole.

“They need to explain satisfactorily how this latest issue surfaced.”

Benalla has had a history of problems dating back to mid-2010 and the track had a year off in 2011 for renovation of the drainage system, only to lose a meeting in January 2012.

Another meeting was lost in March 2012 when a hole was found in the track.

Heavy rain forced a meeting in April last year to be abandoned and on December 6 an electrical storm and heavy rain caused another to be called off before a race was run.

Benalla is due to hold another meeting on January 18.

Friday’s meeting was brought forward to an earlier start and finish because of predicted hot weather.

Article from justhorseracing.com.au