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Totally agree with Sean.
AW racing in this country is what it is because of the way it has been handled – as a medium to generate turnover for the bookmakers.
Had it been treated as a sport from it’s inception, with commensurate funding and TV coverage, it might have persuaded connections of better horses to run them through the Winter, and interest and attendances would have been all the better for it.
As it is, the BAGS mentality rules, and racing, punters, and turnover, are all the poorer because of it.In Germany you have Neuss and Dortmund which are the only ones i know.
AngloGerman or Tony25 will be able to speak with greater authority on the matter, but I think there’s also an AW track at Honzrath, isn’t there?
If I read last year’s list of German jumps fixtures (not long) correctly, I think Honzrath even programmed an AW chase, though whether it ultimately took place or not I’m not sure.
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.
Funny how nobody ever refers to Nad Al Sheba as an AW track – or slags off the Dubai World Cup as just another low grade AW race.
Within the media this difference is easily explained as where’s the fun in all expenses paid trip to Wolverhampton, when you can visit Dubai and get paid as well!
The marketing man in 1989 who invented the phrase ‘all weather racing’ has much to answer for. In reality there’s no such thing as AW racing, it’s just flat racing on an artifical surface.
After my first runner at Kempton in April 2005, I commented on here that if the Polytrack was dyed green, nobody would be able to tell the difference and I stand by that.
One thing always overlooked by the anti brigade is that the horses (you know, those big brown things that are the whole point of the sport) love Polytrack. It gves them confidence going racing and coming home with no sore shins, no bruised feet, no pulled muscles etc etc.
I’d run a horse at any of our four artificial tracks in preference to running it at Brighton, or Epsom, or Catterick or half a dozen other turf tracks in midsummer on fast ground – and that includes the ‘new’ Ascot.
AP
I have long been and remain a big fan of artificial/dirt/sand/all-weather racing.
However, I don’t think that the generally unimaginative race-planning helps to promote it much. Given the amount of anti-AWT feelings held (and expressed) by a considerable number of racing enthusiasts and professionals, I think there is a marketing/PR opportunity here which is being missed.
Whilst acknowledging that the weather will tend to be poor, and the meetings often low-grade and mid-week, the feeling I get is that the racing is kind of wheeled out as cheap-and-not-so-cheerful betting shop fodder.
For example, why don’t we have some kind of ‘festival day’ at the end of the winter season? Also, why does Kempton seem content to gorge itself on (seemingly) much lower quality flat racing than it used to have? Why aren’t there courses with bigger lounge-like indoor viewing areas for watching the racing through big glass windows closer to the track (kind of like at Wolverhampton or many other greyhound tracks)?
Just thoughts, and probably not particularly great ones, but I’m just not sure anyone is that bothered given that it might involve thinking, planning, investment, risk and the like…
Funny how nobody ever refers to Nad Al Sheba as an AW track – or slags off the Dubai World Cup as just another low grade AW race.
Coould that be anything to do with the fact the the races there aren’t an endless cycle of s***e?
Token gestures are made, chiefly at Lingfield, to pretend that a standard of racing, above and beyond class 5 and 6 contests, exist on the AW. Funny, though, how the higher grade races seem to attract the same old faces,with resultingly small fields and unreliable pace. Largely uncompetitive racing run for the benefit of the few and of interest to even less.
Why do people want rid of class 5 and class 6 races?
Without them we would maybe have only a few racing days each week like they do in Ireland.
What would we do with all these lower grade horses if they had nowhere to race? Shoot them? Make all the non big name jockeys go on the dole as they wouldnt be getting rides in the big races.
You have to have lower grade racing, you simply have to. What about some of the great success stories where you have a horse starting life in class 6 handicaps and improving all the way to the top level.
As a punter a winner is a winner and a race is a race, the low level races present more opportunities I believe as there are so many racing snobs who refuse to work on these races and therefor leave ‘value’ (dont go there) for the people who do.Hi
I have always maintained the major problem that’s set by AW racing is the lack of a proper season. It’s fine during the winter as an alternative NH for non jumping enthusiasts but it’s straying more and more into the turf season and the constant surface switching makes analysis more difficult. AW should start and the end of the flat and finish at the end if March. Just as summer jumping should be abolished along with amateur races on professional cards.
Incidently the only AW course with any character is Lingfield as it follows the undulations of the grass and is not a flat oval.I’ve been to Nad al Sheba and for some reason the dirt track there seems quite different maybe because it’s a lot warmer! The rest are just greyhound racing with horses run with similar amounts of integrety and we all know what’s happened to thatWhy do people want rid of class 5 and class 6 races?
Without them we would maybe have only a few racing days each week like they do in Ireland.
Could that be anything to do with the reason that the Irish whip your backside at Cheltenham every year?
Yes, many of the horses and some of the jockeys, too, should be shot.
Whatever the situation, I find it hard to believe that any other ‘major’ sport with, perhaps, the exception of British tennis is being run on worse terms than horse racing in this country at the present time. Aside from the dross that is presented on a day-to-day basis, the ‘pattern’ is maintained (albeit with the mutilation of individual race names), seemingly without regard for the changes that are taking place within international racing.
I suspect, however, that in a country in which brand and profit represent the primary credo, your grade 5 and 6 races are secure for a while yet.
Horses love polytrack AP? Think that’s a bit strong. Some horses might act on it, there are a good many that don’t and there are plenty of horses around that prefer fast ground on turf.
And your suggestion that horses don’t get injured on polytrack is not correct. The balance of the type of injuries they get does differ from turf, but horses still get injured.
richard
folks lets not get to parochial about aw racing , the real reason the numberof runners has and is declining is very simple , its costs !!!
fuel costs have risen 15 per cent and yes youve guessed it , prize money has decreased by the same amount , so its a no brainer , ,, trainers and owners just want to dodge constant losses if they can
have fun
Ricky
Just to say that when Paul says he saw an "odd pair"at Wolver, I was the one in the middle! I make no claim to sanity.
Lets be brutally frank about it: the bulk of the people at the course are getting paid to be there. I wish I was too, but, realistically, I wouldn’t think that many of the heavily mortgaged, young, working population of the country would even consider spending a cold and grey mid-week day at wet and windy Wolver. Why would they? It’s different for a silly old duffer like myself. I shall always be in the minority.
Whatever else it may be, polytrack isn’t intrinsically dangerous; the horses that breakdown on it do so because of, either, a weakness in the horse, or, because of jockey error when bunching and clipping heels.
Some people think that AW means low-class, so any old animal will do. The truth is an animal has to be fit on the sand. It’s quite hard work.
Many of the gallops in UK have been put under polytrack, so a considerable number of NH horses are well used to it nowadays.In answer to the title of the thread, it will be noticed that Southwell’s card tomorrow has attracted over 70 runners at the overnight stage, which I suppose adds credence to the earlier suggestions that the runners will still come if the right races are programmed.
In the case of tomorrow, that appears to mean an amateur riders’ handicap (not time to get rid of these quite yet, then, Kentdougal…) and a seller, which between them are responsible for attracting nearly 30 of that grand total.
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.
In the case of tomorrow, that appears to mean an amateur riders’ handicap (not time to get rid of these quite yet, then, Kentdougal…) and a seller, which between them are responsible for attracting nearly 30 of that grand total.
Hi GC
The problem is the trainers love them as cheap way of rewarding their unpaid work riders and other staff. As usual in racing little consideration is given to paying spectators or other interested parties. It’s all an insiders club and they then wonder why it’s all going down the tubesI’m not sure if that’s entirely doing the race (and others like it) justice, Kent. We have the excellent – but as far as I’m aware unattached – Simon Walker up on Speed Dial Harry today, so there’s a possible angle for punters there straight away, i.e. can the horse go close under a comparatively very talented rider at what still look like rewarding odds judged on the RP tissue.
I’d also reckon that there’s at least five horses who are in good enough form or on fair enough marks to land this – far more than in a lot of equally low-grade contests run recently, many of which haven’t managed to attract that many runners full stop.
It’s an ordinary race, undeniably so, and there is certain to be a bit of a variance between the best and worst riders on show, but I don’t think I’d go as far as suggesting such contests show a degree of contempt towards the paying customer any more than, say, a wide open example of a hunters’ chase. Today’s race certainly has its place in that rarest of things at the moment – an AW card where they’ll have to pay out for third place in six of the seven races.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)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.
if it wasnt for aw racing where would people find the really slow cheap horses to take around these miserable jumps tracks that operate for a few meetings a year to plod around slowly and uncompetitively in the mud and maybe fall over a fence that is put there to slow them down even further
some of the low quality jumps racing is dire, either with huge fields of dross or small fields of nothing
lingfield operates for a hundred days a year and provides great entertainment – how some of these jumps tracks continue to stay open astounds me – without subsidy they couldn’t do it
these miserable jumps tracks that operate for a few meetings a year
I don’t want to get sucked into any Flat versus jumps debate at this juncture, but pedantry obliges me to point out that no course really operates for only "a few" meetings a year – Cartmel with six and Aintree with nine are, I believe, the only courses hosting fewer than 10 days’ worth of racing per year at present.
Where the "survival without subsidy" point is concerned, I don’t know either, but I will be watching Hexham, freshly denuded of such a huge portion of its Levy funding, as something of a test case in the coming months.
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.
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