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“from what I understand it was -5C on the Friday night at Cheltenham, so there is an argument to say that had they been able to keep the covers down and not raced Friday the Saturday meeting might still have been abandoned anyway.”
It touched -7.5 on Thursday night yet they raced on the Friday.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"This is probably just me being the ignorant American here but I honestly did not realize that NH racing in the UK could not take place in freezing weather. Like I know they wouldn’t race here if the ground were frozen (hence the jumps season running from March to November) but I figured that if you’re racing in the dead of winter in a temperate climate you expect it to be below freezing much of the time. Does it just rarely get this cold at Cheltenham?
It touched -7.5 on Thursday night yet they raced on the Friday
I thought they had the course (cross country part aside) already covered by Wednesday though?
Assume the Friday morning temperatures were warm eough quickly enough to counter that freeze, which I believe is the main issue that decides whether racing will go ahead……they said even before they started covering the course on Friday after racing finished it was already 0C and dropping and clearly temperatures weren’t higher enough early enough to counter that.
The honest truth is that we will never know for sure if racing would have survived Saturday had the covers remained down on Friday as -7.5C followed by -5C on succesive nights might have been too much for the course to overcome especially if temperatures didn’t get higher enough Saturday morning.
“Assume the Friday morning temperatures were warm eough quickly enough to counter that freeze”
It was still zero degrees on Friday morning when it was declared that racing was on.
The current rules mean one day’s racing cannot be sacrificed for another, but the reported facts here are that it touched -7.5 Thursday night, was still zero when racing was declared on Friday morning and a -5 frost Friday night did for the Saturday card.
Had the covers been put down Wednesday night and left down – sacrificing Friday – until Saturday morning, the balance of probability is surely that they could have raced on Saturday.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"But then look at Ascot for this weekend – apparently the covers have been down since last week and yet they are still saying the course is frozen in places. So
Fair comment – tbh I was surprised Cheltenham raced on the Friday given it touched -7.5 overnight and it was only zero when they said they could race.
It made the frost covers look like a miracle game changer at the time.
But Saturday is racing’s big day of the week – should the rules be changed in an attempt to preserve Saturday fixtures on similar future such occasions?
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I didn’t realise it went to -7.5C until you said and knowing that now I agree with you that Friday was extremely lucky to pass inspection (not sure how it did given the temperatures you mention Friday morning).
Re the rule change, I can see the point of trying to safeguard the bigger race day in principle but then you can see the argument for those having runners on the other day (who in some cases might not have horses capable of running on a big Saturday) being angry at their opportunity being taken away especially if the course is fit to race on the Friday.
Then you also have to take into account the weather throwing a spanner in the works to the point where the big Saturday meeting gets abandoned anyway and both days are lost.
“not sure how it did given the temperatures you mention Friday morning”
Same as that – I was astonished tbh.
And I agree it’s not clear cut – if the rules change, there will be times when you sacrifice Friday and lose Saturday anyway.
But Saturday is massive in the racing industry – nation’s day of leisure, usually the best racing of the week, the day it’s guaranteed terrestrial TV coverage – and I’m not surprised many were saying on Sunday that the industry is run with all the professionalism of a gymkhana when racing on a Friday meant it was below zero (hence too late) by the time the covers went down for Saturday.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"” I figured that if you’re racing in the dead of winter in a temperate climate you expect it to be below freezing much of the time. Does it just rarely get this cold at Cheltenham?:
It’s not common for it to be cold enough for long enough for the turf to freeze. If it’s a clear night it’ll dip below freezing quite often, and you get a grass frost but that melts off the next morning when the sun comes up. If it’s cloudy that usually insulates us enough to stay above freezing. Being a maritime climate, we don’t really get extremes and the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Drift help to keep temperatures above freezing most of the time. We also normally get low pressure systems rolling in from the west one after another- it’s uncommon for weather systems to be parked here for long.
It was colder on Thursday night than Friday night- but this was the first big frost of the year and there was still some residual warmth in the ground. I would think the length of time the temperature was below freezing matters as much as the actual lowest temperature reached…the “area under the curve” idea.
“But then look at Ascot for this weekend – apparently the covers have been down since last week and yet they are still saying the course is frozen in places.”
They can slow heat loss from the ground but they can’t stop it.
Cotc always say they are reliant on day time temperature being at least 2-3C above 0C in order to thaw any overnight frost quickly enough to enable racing to go ahead.
Multiple nights in a row of minus temperatures and then the following day time temperature remaining around 0-1C will not be sufficient to give the ground a chance to thaw before the next nights frost kicks in and that is the position a lot of the courses now find themselves in, so it will now likely take day time temperatures to be well above 2-3C to reverse the continued nights of frost and the forecast doesn’t appear to be inclined to help early enough.
Ascot still have the next few nights forecast at -3C with day time temperature at a maximum of 3C so Friday is pretty much gone when they inspect tomorrow unless the forecast is way wrong and Saturday is looking bleak based on this comment from Cotc Stickles:
“I’m not confident for Saturday at all. Forecasts indicate it could get up to 5C on that day, but that will not be enough to make the track raceable – we got up to 5C last weekend and it made no difference, the track was still frozen.
“Add to that we’ve been consistently cold since and the milder spell that we hoped might materialise at some point over yesterday and today hasn’t happened at all.
“We’ll keep an eye on things that happen on Wednesday afternoon and overnight to see if we can consider inspecting on Friday for Saturday’s card.”
Yet more evidence today that “AW Racing” needs a rebrand – it’s getting a bit embarrassing now.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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