About 150 nails have been scattered around an
Invercargill horse racing track, which race officials are calling an
"act of terrorism" against the industry.
An anonymous phone call
90 minutes before racing was due to start at Ascot Park Raceway on
Saturday alerted officials that there were 120 lead head nails spread on
the galloping track, the Southland Times reported.
Some of the nails were standing upright and would have gone directly into the hooves of the horses.
A metal detector cleared the track so the gallops could start.
Then on Sunday, 30 more nails were found on the harness racing track, shortly before racing began.
Twelve marker pylons and four water pump fuses also went missing and were found later in a water tank.
Southland
Racing Club president Sean Bellew said putting nails on the tracks was
"an act of terrorism against the racing industry".
The person who
had phoned in the tip on Saturday had sounded like an older man and also
used racing terminology, referring to finding the nails "up the 1400
metre chute", he said.
The missing pump fuses also suggested the culprit knew the layout of the race track.
Invercargill
Harness Racing Club president Peter Robinson said he believed the
culprit had something against the racing industry.
Industry veterans had never heard of a New Zealand track being sabotaged by nails.
"The consequences could have been catastrophic," said New Zealand's chief stipendiary steward Cameron George.
Bomb threats had been made against race meetings, but never foreign objects on tracks.
Police are investigating.
NZN