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Not that the BHA have much of a foot left to shoot, just makes them look ever so slightly more incompetent.
BHA confirms postponement of one race at Newcastle meeting on Thursday 8 February
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
The old “chippy” anti-Tory adage: “Three brothers from a wealthy family go to public school. One brother actually has a brain, is successfully coached into getting into Oxford or Cambridge, then goes into the City and earns fortunes. The second brother is bang average, but is coached to get the grades for a red-brick uni and goes on to be a Tory MP. Third brother is thick as mince and gets a job in racing.”
Nothing in my 60 years on this planet has ever given me cause to believe the above “chippy” cynicism is not, in fact, actually searingly true.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"To be fair, ARC are equally culpable in this instance.
At least it dawned on someone before the runners were at the start.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Should the not be called the British Horse Racing Authority (BHRA), horse racing is two words is it not.
The things I want most in life are the things that I can't win.
Utterly clueless clowns running racing in this country. But, it’s shocking how ARC think Newcastle is a wonderful racetrack now the fabulous NH and flat course have been cut up and sacrificed for cheap AW course with only a straight floodlit course.
ARC are running their racetracks as a business, to make money, not for the benefit of British Racing. We might not like it, but with their AW surface they can hold many more meetings (79 scheduled days, compared to 30 in 2015) and they would probably like more, which increases their revenue. That’s why they love them.
I might be wrong, but I seem to remember ARC originally only wanted the AW straight mile and it was the BHA who insisted they retained flat racing with distances in excess of 1 mile on the round course.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
The original plan was to retain a Flat Turf track. An official from Newcastle racecourse appeared on “The Morning Line” on Northumberland Plate day a few years ago. She reassured viewers that future runnings of the Plate would be on Turf. A few months later, Arc announced the Turf course would not be retained and all Flat races would be run on the artificial surface.
Even after that they were also proposing that the Northumberland Plate would be run on the hurdle course to keep it a turf race, but obviously that didn’t happen.
As I’ve reiterated several times over the years, I was not against AW racing when it started. It served a purpose during the winter months (when we used to have proper winters), but there is far too much now, in my opinion, and has had a detrimental impact on NH racing.
The final running of the Northumberland Plate was in 2015 as far as I’m concerned.
I honestly couldn’t tell you if any of Kempton’s turf flat races are still run there – The Easter Stakes, Masaka Stakes, Sirenia Stakes, September Stakes, Queen’s Prize, Rosebery Handicap, Jubilee Handicap. Whether they are, or not, is of little interest. I may get round to uploading one of my “Race Series” to Youtube for one or more of these sometime in the future. However, they will finish with the 2004/2005 runnings, as I don’t keep any AW races.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Most of those races are still run, in name only at least.
I don’t like it either. Pattern races and heritage handicaps should not be switched from Turf to an artificial surface. It shows no respect for the sport’s history but the authorities appear not to care.
Back in the day, when I used to direct coverage of horse racing, the rule of thumb, based on sunset times, certainly in southern Britain, was that from 1 February, the last race could be at 5.00p.m., getting later as spring arrived.
That also had the effect of first race going off later too, at 2.00p.m., or later.
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