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The walk over did mean the sport did get some publicity on BBC Breakfast this morning, they even showed it!
Although the 3 presenters including the sports “expert” hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. No surprise there though.
Naga said if one horse could trot for one furlong why couldn’t the others while Bushell thought it was Captain Teague’s first ever run.Well, his full brother Jacob’s Ladder won the Down Royal bumper on rather fast ground in 3 min. 50 secs. only a week ago. Can they be that different and why wouldn’t you run him especially with that kind of information received a week ago?
https://www.racingpost.com/profile/horse/5490499/jacobs-ladder/form
Had a look on you tube , it was funny seeing the live logos up etc as if it was a real race .
So the good horses sent round in big race must have been at huge risk , good job they made it through .
If its a welfare issue should the BHA then not look at canceling any meeting over jumps with Good in track situation
Seen a couple of walkovers at Sandown back in day , Burrough Hill Lad was one i was there for .I assume if winner dont run again for whatever reason , say jarred up jogging past post on that ground on Friday , he will be no longer a novice in new season having never jumped a fence on raceday .
Interesting theory from Dave Nevison on Racing TV yesterday regarding small fields. Bear mind that this has been a problem for years, he said that he didn’t consider small fields was due to there being too much racing but that it was due to there not being enough horses in training.
Well not enough horses in training for the amount of racing there is correct. But how do you fix this problem without affecting quality. Obviously more horses in training will mean a dilution in quality and possibly more injuries/fatalities.
I can remember the Burrough Hill Lad walkover and I don’t remember any “jump racing is in crisis” hysteria or when he won a 3 runner King George
Id have to dig out the racebook ax still got it but i think BHL simply scared opposition away and it was a walkover when fields came out . I may be wrong but i think that was case .
On another occasion Sandown ran walkover before first race as again it was only one horse declared .
I think when a trainer mentions its a welfare issue they are driving a big truck down a no exit street that when Taunton say is GF come Thursday some would say why they running any horses at all and reversing out is difficult . I remember when Taunton had Hard in going back in day .That BHL walkover was Sat Feb 2nd, 1985 and yes, it was a walkover when the overnight decs were made. It was moved to be the last race. Nothing to do with the going as it was ‘soft’ that day.
I was there and we at least had the consolation of seeing Desert Orchid win the Oteley Hurdle.
There’s one simple solution to the lack of runners that the BHA could implement overnight. Part of the problem is courses all chasing the better horses by staging class 2/3 races. But the real problem, imo, is that the grading of the races doesn’t match the handicapping.
Too many 0 – 130 type races, not enough 130 horses, etc.
So why not increase the rating of every NH horse by 10lbs, but leave the race program unchanged. Result – more horses pushed out of 0-120 into 0-130, etc all the way up the scale.
Won’t help with novice chases of course, but they are a different problem, caused by the endless fiddling over the last 30 years. Each ‘improvement’ has ended up making things worse.
We’ve had a drought in the east coast of the US for the last several months and it’s finally caused a couple of the late season meets this month to be outright cancelled. Horses can and do run on hard ground (they ran the International Gold Cup on hard ground a few weeks ago – some non-runners but no horses hurt) but not on ground that’s half dirt because the perennial grasses haven’t sprouted. For the most part though courses have done an admirable job of watering and aerating to get safe firm ground which most American horse trainers would argue is the best ground there is. It’s silly that trainers would be afraid of firm ground, let alone good.
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