Race relations at Royal Randwick

The Royal Randwick racecourse, to the east of Sydney, looks empty and abandoned. It is empty and abandoned, except for a few gardeners. The fences and gates are locked to both horses and punters, because of a scourge of contagious horse flu, from the Centennial Park stables, across the road.
Next year the stands may well be overflowing with 500,000 pilgrims in place of punters. The Catholic church wants to hold a Papal mass there, celebrated by Benedict XVI as part of World Youth Day celebrations.
This will be the fourth papal mass there, following similar events in 1973, 1986 and 1999 with John Paul II and Pope Paul VI.
The 2008 mass is expected to shut down racing at Randwick for 10 weeks. After been closed for the flu, that's a lot more disruption to the flow of bets and prize money, and horse trainers and owners want compensation, reported to be in tens of millions. That’s not to be sneezed at.