It remains to be seen how it works but it sounds promising, at least from a racing perspective. This season’s Derby Day was poor. Epsom’s committee deserves credit for recognising it was not good enough and acting on feedback.
Moving the 3 year old Dash to Friday looks like a good idea. Two back to back 5 furlongs handicaps before the Derby was very uninspiring. It meant that in the best part of two hours there was only two minutes of actual racing. That simply wasn’t good enough.
The “new” 7 furlong race sounds like it could work. I don’t suppose Haydock will miss it too much. The boozed and coked up crowds who go there on a Saturday would still pay to cheer on seven selling plates and not know any better.
It is a little sad to see the historic name John Of Gaunt disappear. Perhaps Haydock could rename another race?