20mm overnight and a further 5mm this morning on ground ground artificially watered to be good (good to firm in places) prior to the rain.
It is now described as good to soft (good in places) – had they not watered last week (after already watering to ensure good ground for Breakfast with the Stars morning) the ground naturally after this rain would have likely been no worse than good and with the unsettled and cooler forecast this week (which means the course won’t dry very quickly) any more bits of rain would make it good to soft at worse.
Now if said bits of rain that are forecast this week are (like last night) worse than forecast then we could be looking at soft ground and given that they are racing on Friday which could open the ground up any more rain going into Saturday could make it very testing.
They could easily have held off watering last week until this rain band passed through which would have still given them plenty of time to water before Friday if the rain wasn’t as much as forecast or didn’t come at all.
Those fluent actioned fast ground loving horses have once again had their chances compromised by this incessant need to water to provide at best good ground and in some cases even good to soft for Summer flat racing, which wherever possible should always be aimed to be run on good to firm ground – the Lingfield Derby & Oaks trials were run on good to firm ground so (weather permitting) why can’t the Derby/Oaks be the same as we know Lingfield is the closest replica course to Epsom and nobody seemed to have any qualms about coming downhill at Lingfield on fast ground.
This continued overwatering is ensuring that the breed is getting weaker (as more and more horses being bred will need softer ground and won’t be able to act on traditional summer flat racing ground), it is even worse for NH racing as we hear more trainers threatening not to run horses on ground that doesn’t have soft in the description.
A COTC’s job is to provide safe ground and only intervene when the weather doesn’t look like playing ball – good to firm with no jar in it is perfectly safe ground and if you happen to have a horse that likes softer ground then (just like those that like faster ground but in the Autumn it ends up being too soft) you either don’t run your horse or roll the dice.
Rant over……..probably 