Water pooling on the back straight at the Otaki Maori Racing Club saw Mexteds contracted to install 750 metres of 160mm collector drains recently. Race Group Tracks Manager, Kim Treweek, says the club decided to replace some of the older catchment. “It wasn’t working well. The water wasn’t getting away.”

The club decided to take a staged approach, installing new collector drains first to see what difference that would make, and at the same time installing junctions so that if in future they wish to extend the drainage they can plug straight into it. Kim says the collector drains are doing the job.

“It’s looking fantastic, even with the rain we’ve had to date, which has been a reasonable amount, it’s going really well.” While Mexteds was installing the collector drains, the area continued to be used for morning training, and racing continued outside the works area.

​"The day to day work and tidy up at the end of the night for horse training the next day was fantastic,” says Kim. “It was clean and tidy and nothing was left around that would impact on the training.” 

At times it’s been all hands to the pump as Mexteds has undertaken a significant upgrade of the Hutt Recreation Ground for the Hutt City Council over recent months. 

The #2 and #3 fields have been upgraded to full sand surfaces, following the installation of primary and secondary drainage and irrigation systems. 

In the first stage, Mexteds installed 171 metres of 160mm collector drains and 3,510 metres of 110mm subsoil lateral drains on both fields, and undertook some minor levelling of the #3 field over a 120 metre by 70 metre area.

At the end of the cricket season, secondary drainage work began, with 50mm sand slits installed at one metre centres, followed by 10mm sand top dressing. The final part of the project was the installation of a new cricket wicket.

We excavated a new block, installed subsoil drainage, basecourse and topcourse, before laying and laser levelling the new Patamahoe clay wicket. The old block was reinstated, sowed and fertilised and levels readjusted to blend in the new block and surrounding outfield area, using trenchings from the drainage works.

​Paul Pinfold, our contracts manager, said the work progressed well and has now been completed, despite a short hold up to final sand slitting and sand top dressing when the Wellington Phoenix relocated to Hutt Rec from the Westpac Stadium during the International Cricket World Cup.