Senior jockey Brad Rawiller has given the new Ballarat synthetic track the thumbs-up after it was called into action earlier than anticipated.
Scheduled to hold its first meeting on Friday, the synthetic track held a transferred turf meeting on Sunday.
Heavy rain late last week left Ballarat’s turf track sodden and the call was made to transfer the meeting.
Rawiller rode a double on Sunday and said the track passed the test.
“At the end of the day we were able to get the meeting to go ahead,” Rawiller told RSN927.
“That’s a big win to begin with but the track itself stood up fantastic.”
Ballarat and Pakenham are now the only Victorian tracks that will hold synthetic meetings following the decision to move away from Geelong.
Rawiller said the track felt nice underfoot and played fair.
“I’m sure there’ll be horses that will love it and there’ll be horses that won’t adapt,” Rawiller said.
“I didn’t get any sense you needed to be in the first three or doing anything drastic.
“It’s still quite fresh at the moment so we’ll have to see how it plays out in the future.
“It’s a big tick for the club and I’m looking forward to getting back there next Friday.”
Although he rode a double, Rawiller was overshadowed by in-form rival Declan Bates who had a treble, including the first winner on the new surface, Runaway Suzie, for Mitchell Freedman.
