Horse racing is doing its part to conserve water in Cape Town with all stakeholders exploring alternative water consumption methods.
“We have two earth dams at Kenilworth Racecourse, which are catchment dams and those two are used exclusively to irrigate the track,” said course manager Dean Diedericks.
The irrigation dams at the course did not fill during the winter and were only half full, which meant alternatives had to be found said Diedericks.
“We had four boreholes installed many years ago but after testing the water, only three of those boreholes were worth drawing water from.
“We followed all the required due process and got approval from the city council, so now those three boreholes supplement the dams,” he said.
The racecourse had been criticised for not irrigating at night but he said it was impossible for ground staff to get the whole track done in eight hours at night.
Diedericks said the system was not perfect and that the horseracing community were not the only ones that have
had to deal with the crippling drought. They were being as conservative as possible.
“Unfortunately no irrigation system is
100% effective.
“Sprinklers do get affected by wind and there will be some water sprayed outside the sprinklers’ area.
“We have also made use of wetting agents which has reduced water requirements by 50%.
“Other sporting codes like golf courses have the same problem and many of them are using recycled water,” he said.