TWO years of ongoing drought conditions have severely affected the region's racing industry and the Tamworth Jockey Club is set to be the latest casualty.
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The club has been forced to relocate its September 9 race meeting and associated trials to Scone due to safety concerns.
The concerns stem from the track's dry state. Tamworth Jockey Club general manager Mitchell Shaw said the track had suffered due to "climatic conditions".
"Essentially the track is holding up pretty well, but we've had a busy winter racing schedule with seven meetings in 12 weeks without rain," Shaw told the Leader.
"That period was a really good economic boost for the club and the region, but the track is certainly feeling it.
"The club's main priority is the safety of horses and jockeys and, by relocating these meetings, we can allow the track a little bit of time to recover."
Shaw said the track would be in safe condition for Tamworth's next scheduled meeting on Friday.
"We have no doubt it [the track] will be right to go for Friday," he said.
"The plans to relocate centre around this meeting, so it should be right to go."
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Tamworth has received only 77.8mm of rain since April and outlooks are predicting a long, dry summer.
"While the plan to relocate meetings is purely a short-term plan to help the track, it is going to be interesting to see how we will manage the track going forward if we don't get much rain," Shaw said.
"We only get a certain water allocation and we have to make it last until next year.
"It is what it is. We will just have to work out the best way to manage it."
Tamworth trainer Sue Grills agreed with Shaw's sentiments, saying water supplies were becoming a concern.
"There's not too much we can do about it at the moment, but things are starting to become a bit tough," Grills said.
"The price of feed has gone up again and a water shortage is also a fair bit of a concern. I'd say water is the real worry - we can work around most things, but running out of water is going to make things really tough."
Grills said the impact of costs associated with the drought could be felt by racing syndicates.
"I haven't put my fees up yet, but it's certainly a possibility if things don't improve," she said.
"I think hard tracks are becoming the norm with how dry it is; us trainers just have to work around it.
"Drought is one of those things, we just have to get on with it and do what we have to do to keep going."