For the fourth time in less than a week, a posse of riders and officials were forced to inspect a track mid-meeting on Monday. Jockeys reported slipping on Lingfield’s home turn in the first contest on what was scheduled to be a seven-race card. Unlike similar inspections at Haydock Park, Beverley and Chester in recent days, the meeting was not abandoned, but racing continued only on the straight course with the card reduced to five events.
At all four tracks, concerns were raised that horses were slipping on the bends. Haydock’s card on Friday evening was abandoned after two races, while Chester staged four races on Saturday afternoon before the meeting was called off. The course then caused controversy by announcing that it would not offer refunds to racegoers as it had staged the day’s feature race, a Class 2 handicap, although it said via Twitter on Mondayit is “assessing how we can acknowledge the disappointment felt by customers, owners, trainers and bookmakers”.
Sally Iggulden, Beverley’s chief executive, said last week that Wednesday’s card was the first in her 22 years at the course that had been abandoned mid-meeting, which hints at how exceptional it is for four British meetings to have similar issues with unsafe ground in such a short period of time.
Heavy rain after a prolonged spell of dry weather has been raised as one possible explanation, while Kirkland Tellwright, Haydock’s clerk of the course, applied 8mm of water three days before Friday’s card. The meeting then opened on good-to-soft ground after 6mm of rain on Wednesday and Thursday, having been described as good-to-firm on Tuesday.
The British Horseracing Authority’s general instructions require tracks to aim to provide “good-to-firm ground”, while adding the regulator accepts “some managing executives may wish to produce good ground depending upon their track topography, soil type, weather patterns and/or whether they are staging two or more consecutive days racing”.
Beverley was not watered in the run-up to last Wednesday’s meeting, though a jockey told the Racing Post that rail movements meant the home turn was “tight as a right angle”. Beverley and Haydock have staged meeting since their abandoned cards without incident.
“It’s a difficult one,” George Hill, Lingfield’s clerk of the course, said on Monday. “I haven’t prepared the track any differently than I would have done the last few weeks we’ve been racing here. This is our fourth turf meeting this month and the track was prepared exactly the same way, it’s not like we’ve been moving rails.
Newton Abbot 1.10 Lonimoss Bareliere 1.45 Thahab Ifraj 2.20 Minella Voucher 2.50 Quid Pro Quo 3.20 Danzini 3.50 Glendruid 4.25 Night On The Town
Nottingham 1.20 Nine Elms 1.55 Sugar Hill Babe 2.30 Beggarman 3.00 Come On Girl 3.30 Princess Shabnam (nb) 4.00 City Escape 4.35 Royal Aviation (nap)
Cartmel 2.10 Hey Bob 2.40 Global Agreement 3.10 Quickbuck 3.40 Lermoos Legend 4.15 Bob's Bar 4.50 Grageelagh Girl 5.25 Frightened Rabbit
Ripon 5.00 Shandy Star 5.35 Head Chef 6.05 Raydoun 6.35 City Walk 7.05 Hellenista 7.40 Poptronic 8.10 Albegone
Kempton Park 5.55 Storyinthesand 6.25 Starter For Ten 6.55 Audience 7.30 Melodramatica 8.00 Siamsa 8.30 Pearl Beach 9.00 Murau
“I’m scratching my head to figure out why that horse has slipped in race one. It’s something we’ll have our agronomist out to look at next week in case there’s something we’ve missed. Unfortunately, it’s just a situation where we’ve managed to lose two races on safety grounds, we can only apologise to the connections of all the horses and Arc [the track’s owner] will reimburse owners for those races.”
Epsom racecourse said on Monday that Saturday’s Derby will be run in memory of Lester Piggott, who won the Classic a record nine times, after his death on Sunday.
Leicester 1.00 Central City 1.35 Nusa Dua 2.10 Simply Sondheim 2.45 Convection 3.20 Devaste 3.55 Neandra 4.25 Under Fox
Uttoxeter 1.07 Fountains Chief 1.42 Toad Of Toad Hall 2.17 Halligator 2.52 De Barley Basket 3.27 Well Briefed 4.02 Release The Kraken 4.37 Encashment
Hamilton Park 1.26 Coco Jack 2.01 Parisiac 2.36 Tipperary Tiger (nap) 3.11 Poet's Dawn 3.46 Haven Lady 4.20 Somewhere Secret 4.55 Savvy Knight
Redcar 1.52 Hayadh 2.27 Roshambo 3.02 Pepsi Cat 3.37 Sparkling Red 4.12 Mick Mchugh 4.45 Bollin Joan 5.15 King's Commander 5.45 Marie Paradis
Ffos Las 5.20 Joyful Kit 5.50 Astra Via 6.25 Gats And Co 7.00 Friary Land 7.30 Doncesar De Pretot 8.00 Pilgrims King 8.30 Mac Be Lucky
Chelmsford City 5.30 Mascapone 6.00 Glasstrees 6.35 Crimson Sand (nb) 7.10 Against The Odds 7.40 Spinaround 8.10 Lila Girl 8.40 White Moonlight
Jockeys will wear black armbands in all races at the two-day Derby meeting, which opens on Friday, and there will be a minute’s applause at about 1.15pm, when a wreath in the racing colours Piggott wore aboard Nijinsky, the 1970 Triple Crown winner, will be laid at the statue of the legendary rider on the Queen Elizabeth II Stand lawn. A further minute’s applause will be held at 4pm on Saturday, half an hour before the Derby is due off.
