The Horse Race Track Pond
Located in the Cassada Gardens Horse Race Track is a very large pond which lies to the northern side adjacent to the actual race track. The northern bend of the track was too narrow and too sharp a curve for the races and many time especially in the last lap of a race horses and riders under tremendous speed have experience difficulties, some of which resulted in injuries and permanent damages to both the animals and jockeys.
It was decided that this area had to be widen, reshaped and transformed to a more accessible loop in the course of the track. Once more, the Division of Agriculture (DoA) was consulted for both technical and physical assistance. “What was done so far was the extraction of the Cattail grass and some excavation from the area of the pond nearest to the track by using the long-boom excavator. The western end nearest to the existing stables was clear of the Cattail and excavated materials were dumped into that section for backfilling purposes”, explained Mr. Christian. According to Christian the intention is to use backfilled area to build more much needed stables.
Moreover, Christian explained that the pond size will not decrease but would more or less remain the same. “Although the area along the track will be cleared and backfilled, the northern section will also be cleared of Cattail and excavated. This rerouting and reshaping of the pond will not interfere with its size or volume capacity” Christian added. This project will take longer to complete because the ideal heavy machinery is not available however a lot has been done with only the use of the long boom excavator. “Ideally a front-end loader or a tractor loader would have been the preferred machinery for this project but at the moment there is none available so the work has to be done by an excavator” Christian said.
One of the positive attributes of this ecosystem was the fact that it had lots of Pink Water Lilies (Nymphaeaceae Mayla) which Mr. Christian assured wont be destroyed nor removed.