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Cartmel goes ahead on Thursday
http://www.skysports.com/skysports/arti … 40,00.htmlNOOOOOOOOO!!!!
God’s own Cartmel can’t fall to the elements as well. I forbid it!
I actually can’t remember the course having ever lost a meeting in my lifetime, which is pretty amazing considering what a wet part of the country it resides in. Mark you, it has absolutely wazzed it down on most occasions that this "Barbecue Raceday" has been held at the course, ironically enough.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Is it alright for me to put these inspections on im new and dont see anywhere else on here that tells anyone even search engines dont show them very often I thought it was useful for people to know. Im new on here so dont wanna tred on anyones toes if its already somewhere
It’s quite amazing that here we only have the one turf track and we’ve only lost 1/2 a meeting in the last 2 years and that was down to rather viscious lightning strikes – and I’m pretty sure in the 5 years preceeding my time here, after the new track was opened, they didn’t lose any.
We would have to have a lot more rain than the UK – even in the worst of your weather times.
Is it alright for me to put these inspections on im new and dont see anywhere else on here that tells anyone even search engines dont show them very often I thought it was useful for people to know. Im new on here so dont wanna tred on anyones toes if its already somewhere
I’m sure it’ll be very useful
…. except for when GC throws himself in front of an errant horse when (if) Cartmel gets called off ……….. 
Is it alright for me to put these inspections on im new and dont see anywhere else on here that tells anyone even search engines dont show them very often I thought it was useful for people to know. Im new on here so dont wanna tred on anyones toes if its already somewhere
I wouldn’t presume to speak for Corm but I expect going reports, news of inspections etc. would be VERY welcome on these pages, particularly where you are in a position to act before the racecourse in question bothers its backside to tell anyone and / or if you are privvy to useful info (i.e. by having walked the course yourself).
Indeed, impromptu going reports are an absolute staple of the Jumping For Fun point-to-point web forum I also frequent, although I suppose in many cases access to a farmer’s field somewhere is going to prove a lot easier than that to a fenced-off Rules track.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
I went on Racing UK site, BBC Sport site and Cartmel Site none of them gave anything about an inspection (correct me if im wrong anyone) Cartmel dont even have a news page. How come BBC Sports page is so dire compared to ceefax i will miss ceefax when it disappears in a few years time
The racing manager (what do clerks of the course actually do these days, then?) has given the going as Soft, waterlogged in places. He has then spoken to Ceefax and said that if the meeting is abandoned it won’t be because of the condition of the course but that of the surrounds. Contradictory or what?
Thank heavens for Ceefax they are on the ball most of the time. They had the Cartmel Inspection update on half an hour before anyone else.
Looks like my favourite course of the lot will race tomorrow after all, after a dry enough night last night. Phew!
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
graysonscolumn…can I ask you a question ? What do you like about Cartmel ? I’ve been there about twenty times in a working capacity and I always come to the same conclusion; it’s totally overrated.
The fields are of the poorest quality in the NH calender and considering the course is pulling in good gate receipts, I see it as being quite unsatisfactory that prize money is so meagre.
Access to, and from the track is poor and there are no facilities. The market is full of fake rubbish and the funfair is no good.
Can you enlighten me because I just don’t get it…
graysonscolumn…can I ask you a question ?
Always.
What do you like about Cartmel ? … The fields are of the poorest quality in the NH calender
I’d counter that there is equally lowly fare at the Sedgys and Hexhams of this world week in, week out, with – like Cartmel — just the very occasional 0-125 contest thrown in. In any event, given that nearly all of my trips to the races comprise lesser National Hunt and point-to-point meetings, seeing Championship-class horses is emphatically not a prerequisite for me.
and considering the course is pulling in good gate receipts, I see it as being quite unsatisfactory that prize money is so meagre.
…receipts which, as Lord Cavendish has been entirely candid in explaining in both the racecards and wider media on many occasions, are required first and foremost for the “fighting chest” with which the course can bid, and bid successfully, to retain its coveted Bank Holiday fixtures. £18 (May and August meetings) is unquestionably at the very top end of the range of prices for Tatts / paddock admission across the country, but then few other courses, if any, are so dependent on so few days’ worth of racing, the days they take place on, and the money they bring in, as Cartmel.
I am sure, incidentally, that were Cartmel’s low levels of prizemoney the sole concern of the connections of spring and summer jumping horses, then the idyllic scenery, corporate fare and promise of all the sticky toffee pud they can eat would not be enough to compensate and field sizes would be commensurately miniscule. An entry of 75 tomorrow, on or close to maximum stabling capacity, suggests an appreciation of the venue above and beyond the small purses (not an awful lot different to those of Worcester’s abandoned card today) it has to offer.
Access to, and from the track is poor
That’s not true. In 14 visits to Cartmel I’ve never yet needed more than 25 minutes to get to the track from the M6 (some 8-10 miles away), and never needed more than 40 to get back to the M6 afterwards. Given the remoteness of the venue, the filtering of traffic along the country lanes to the track is most effectively performed by local officials and police who know the drill to the letter.
and there are no facilities.
It has modest facilities – no facilities is going a little far. The limitations of the site, which doubles up as the village green and cricket ground, do prevent wholesale development, and a few more permanent loos may be appreciated, but the array of food and drink stalls and the shops in the village square (including the famous pudding shop) all compensate handsomely.
The market is full of fake rubbish and the funfair is no good.
I’m not sure why this would concern you overly if you are attending Cartmel to work rather than decorate your backside with helter-skelter burns. All I know is that having the fair on course for so many years has kept that element of the youth in the crowd totally disinterested in the racing distracted enough not to be causing trouble elsewhere. Increasingly that is a virtue not to be sniffed at!
I would’t presume to be able to convince every last sceptic of the magic of Cartmel, much less try to. However, I know where I’ll be on August Bank Holiday Saturday – piling the cool-bag full of Richard Woodall Cumberland sausages and locally brewed damson ale, threading my way through the forest of barbecues to the bookies’ pitches by the run-in, and joining the thick end of 20,000 other punters (and Iain Mackenzie in the box, chances are) in cheering home the winner of a 2m1.5f novices’ handicap chase (0-95, Class 5, first prize of little real worldly significance) in the watery sunshine. If anyone cares to join me, they’d be most welcome.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Hats off to you Jeremy on an enjoyable reposte…but I dispute your suggestion that Sedgy and Hexham are serving up racing quite as bad as Cartmel.
Tomorrow’s card is basically banded racing over jumps and despite the romaticism, I don’t think it should be entertained.
My pleasure, BSB. I enjoy the chance for a good argument delivered in equally good grace and spirit.
Don’t get me wrong, Sedgy and Hexham are both trying to add a few more reasonable contests here and there, really they are, and I enjoy my times spent at either. The former is, however, the only jumps course in the country to the best of my knowledge which will think nothing of putting on two sellers on the same card (as it does at least once during the autumn), which does kind of offset the good intentions of its reasonable fare come April and May.
Hexham, meanwhile, just cannot attract the better horses whenever it tries, apart from at its Northumberland National meeting. Its June meetings this year and last, for example, have contained 0-130 handicaps where the topweight has been the best part of 20lb shy of the ratings ceiling… and it’s not as if eligible horses aren’t in ready supply even at this time of year, as your Stratfords and Rasens attract them readily enough.
Putting up attractive enough prizemoney has been a problem at Hexham to varying degrees for as long as I’ve known of the place. One or two years before the Class system reverted to its current, more money-derived numeric structure, the course was able to frame the final of its short-lived Sanyo-sponsored summer hurdling series with a reasonably high ratings ceiling and call it a Class B race. That the final emphatically failed to attract any great quality and quantity was surely due to the winning pot – a derisory £4,000.
I appreciate these are just examples I’ve plucked from their respective programmes as a whole, but I do think they go some way towards showing there’s not quite as much clear blue water between them and Cartmel quality-wise as may be believed.
And neither has a pudding shop.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
To me, there is just something magic about Cartmel, it has charisma in spades & I love it. I’m not phased about the quality of the racing, and surely the sticky toffee pudding all winning connections get more than makes up for the small prize money.
The atmosphere is brilliant, all facilities are within easy reach, I can run from the stand (alright raised slope) & be at the winners enclosure in the wink of an eye. When they ring the bell as they turn into the straight the jumps are conspicuous by there absence, magic. The best bit is watching them in running it’s like being on the magic roundabout. As they say in panto "they’re behind you" then they’re at the side of you, then they’re by the woods then they turn the corner & the only time they pass the winning post is when they’ve won!!! Eccentric, sure it is, boring never, absolutely fabulous, you’d better believe it.Guess that’s another tick in the box marked "quite like the place", then.
Are you off there tomorrow, QC? Not a huge hike up the motorway for you…gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
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