'Chalk and cheese': Sunshine Coast ready to host Hollindale Stakes despite insane 1400mm rain bomb

The struggles of maintaining a track in southeast Queensland this year has been laid bare, with the Sunshine Coast copping 1400mm of rain in four months alone, compared to 920mm for the entire of last year.

It comes as Sunshine Coast officials say they are still best placed to host Saturday's Hollindale Stakes meeting, confident a move earlier in the year to take a break from grass racing has left the surface with great coverage.

Saturday's showcase meeting was moved from the new $63m Gold Coast track to the Sunshine Coast last week, with racing yet to return to the Glitter Strip since the disastrous QTIS Jewel meeting in March.

Sunshine Coast Turf Club chief executive John Miller said a move earlier this year to take a break from grass racing allowed them to rid the track of a nasty fungus, however consistent rain has left the surface in the heavy range.

"To put it in perspective, we are up to 1400mm of rain this year, four months, and for the whole of last year we had 920mm for the whole 12 months," Miller said.

"It has been consistently wet, we race on it so much up here, there was the rain and the high humidity. Most of the grass tracks in SEQ have had the same problem with the fungus and the humidity.

"Murray (Weeding) has been our track manager for 23 years and Murray has never seen this fungus in our track, we had to treat it to get it right, then let the root system come back, which we did.

"We were right after a couple of weeks and then it just kept raining, it was so wet and heavy we couldn't possibly run a meeting.

"If you walk our track at the moment, it is beautiful, but it is heavy because of the rain we have had."

More light rain is forecasted in the Caloundra region this week, with Sunday's meeting moved to the polytrack to keep the grass in the best condition for its second consecutive Hollindale Stakes meeting.

"I know there has been a lot of talk about the tracks at the moment, but my personal view is that it has been a very unique season, the numbers stack up," Miller said.

"If you look at the track now compared to when we had to come off it earlier in the year, it is chalk and cheese."

A decision on whether to race the new $1m Magic Millions 2YO race under lights at the Gold Coast later this month will be made in the coming days, with the option of moving it to the Doomben Cup card on May 25 the hot favourite.