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Tarmon,
Their website page about the finals day doesn’t make it clear either way.
Suggest you ask them the question at:
On a slightly different tack. Does anyone agree that to any occasional racegoers and a lot of betting shop punters the "All Weather Championships" are meaningless?
Being retired I now have enough time to watch racing on ATR/C4 closely and spend more time on website study etc. I still find it somewhat misleading when a fixture at my local track, Southwell, is described as being an "All Weather Championships" meeting. Surely, it’s unlikely that any horse running there will feature on Finals Day and if it does will probably be a big outsider (Southwell form at Lingfield??).
I don’t think that there is any clear path towards the Finals (yes I know that winners of certain races qualify) and even if there is does it have any influence on encouraging new and occasional racegoers to attend meetings from now to March?
You’re quite right, the current position is a bit like going along to your kids sports day and finding it billed as part of the Olympics.
As has always beeen the case, 98% of the horses racing on the AW this winter will be rated 85 or lower (usually much lower), because that’s what the race program is set up for. None of these horses, or their connections, have the slightest chance of getting their hands on the finals day prize money.
So it’s certainly of no relevance to the racegoer at Southwell on a cold Monday afternoon.
Just looking at a racecard from a Southwell meeting 3 weeks ago. There’s a full page ad in there stating "All New, ALL STARS, All Weather" and goes on to say "The Best of British A-W Horse Racing 26 October 2013 – 18 April 2014 EVERY RACE COUNTS!"
I’m sure that it does – every Class 6 Handicap and Claimer etc.!!
I don’t think that the crowd of regulars that I see at Southwell are getting excited at the prospect of seeing "All Stars", to them it’s just a lot of the old familiar horses turning out again.
Perhaps the courses should be giving a bit more information about the Championships. I’m not having a dig at the extra prize money going into the All Weather scene, but let’s "improve the narrative" (terrible phrase!).
I think there is a qualification for the Finals day……
Obviously there’s the win and you’re in races
But also I think a horse has to have run 3 times on the AW during the season to qualify for entry unless they’ve won a ‘win and you’re in’
So I don’t think it will be a case of the big yards parachuting in their early season types for the big day……..
Given that it will probably be an 8 race card I expect a group 3 (Winter Derby) a couple of Listed, a high value Claimer and 4 handicaps
Their website page about the finals day doesn’t make it clear either way.
Funny; their website doesn’t explain why Finals Day couldn’t be held on a Saturday, either.
There will be 6 Conditions races (worth between 150,000 and 200,000 pounds each) as finals for the various categories – Sprint (6), Mile, Middle Distance (10), Marathon (2 miles), Fillies/Mares (7) and 3yos (7).
In addition there will be a 50,000 pounds apprentice handicap over 12 furlongs.
You need to run three times on the all-weather during the Winter to qualify or win one of the Win and You’re In races (3 for each category except Fillies and Mares who have one Listed race but they could win in one of the other divisions to qualify for that race.
Funny; their website doesn’t explain why Finals Day couldn’t be held on a Saturday, either.
It’s a new card for a new racing day on Good Friday
It’s a new card for a new racing day on Good Friday
Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. There is no need for it on Good Friday; the card could easily have been held on Easter Saturday.
It’s a new card for a new racing day on Good Friday
Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. There is no need for it on Good Friday; the card could easily have been held on Easter Saturday.
But there’ll already be a full fixture list on the Saturday
Just checked…….there are already 6 meetings on the Saturday
There is no need for it on Good Friday; the card could easily have been held on Easter Saturday.
Depends, I imagine, on whether the identity of the six Easter Saturday fixtures was already confirmed in the 2014 fixture list before the Good Friday meeting was rubber-stamped. Good chance that that must have been the case, as you’d expect a fixture putting up that sort of prizemoney would easily have outbid all other courses wanting to race on the Saturday by a quite considerable margin.
The prospects of Lingfield being added as a seventh Saturday fixture were also probably never that great – IIRC I don’t think that more than six meetings are sanctioned on the Saturday and seven on the Monday of Easter any longer (whither the days of 15 fixtures on the Monday?).
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Depends, I imagine, on whether the identity of the six Easter Saturday fixtures was already confirmed in the 2014 fixture list before the Good Friday meeting was rubber-stamped.
The 2014 fixture list wasn’t announced until 10th October, so there would have been plenty of time to juggle the rest of the Easter weekend’s meetings and keep Good Friday free.
I was amazed to read in Mark Johnston’s "Bletherings" (23 Jan 2014) on his website that until he was "enlightened" a couple of weeks ago he didn’t know there was an All-Weather Championship!!
He claimed to know about the upgraded races and Champions Day on Good Friday, but knew nothing of the championship and still at the above date knows very little.
If a trainer is saying this, is the concept working? I know that Simon Mapletoft was trying to generate some excitement in the series on ATR today, but try as I might I can’t get any great enthusiasm in the AW Championships. On one hand there is talk of a million pound raceday on Good Friday and then they went over to Wolves for a 2 runner seller (both horses from the same syndicate)!!
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