Executive director of racing Bill Nader hit the nail on the head with his view that the Jockey Club needs to examine the programming of course selection at Happy Valley.
The club seems to have gone to more trouble than usual to promote tomorrow night's Valley meeting, hanging it on the Happy Valley Trophy as 'the highest class sprint in terms of ratings seen at the city track since 2002'.
Which is all very well but we note with alarm the Happy Valley Trophy is being run on the deplorable C+3 track for the third time in four seasons. The club had chopped the use of the C+3 at Happy Valley back to two meetings a term in the 2006-07 season - two more than we'd prefer but acceptably low.
For some reason, they have since sprouted again like mushrooms after rain, with the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons featuring six C+3 cards.
We don't entirely understand why it happened in 2007-08 or 2008-09, unless it was to prepare us all for the darker future, but last season Happy Valley did get more use as a result of the extra five race meetings conducted by the club. All of them were run at Happy Valley.
While winners do come from wider gates on the C+3, the hard fact is that it is the most draw-sensitive course in town and over 58 per cent of the 142 winners in the past three completed seasons have started from gates one to five.
High-grade Valley performers have had a raw deal for some years, with their opportunities diminished, so to then run these Class One events on the rotten C+3 seems to add insult to injury.