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FFS Its 2008 and a race meeting has been called off because of the wind with no problem with the course and no problem for horses or jockeys. Think about it!! Its pathetic.
Safety of people – Aaaarggghhh!! You run a risk every time you cross the road. Cheltenham have FAILED quite simply to provide secure facilities – not good enough by a long shot.
This cannot EVER be allowed to happen again.
That is the world we live in, we live in a world where trip hazards have to have signs over them, and you have to have signs out saying Caution Wet Floor. Where companies like Claims direct advertise at almost every advertisement break. As soon as you set foot on cheltenham they have duty of care to you, and their staff, that you are not injured through any fault of theirs, or for anything that they could have avoided
I can agree with the statement that the erection of the temporary building could have been avoided, and although Im gutted that the festival is off for the day, i dont think it is really avoidable at this stage. I also doubt it would ahve went ahead anyway with the winds.
I work on an airfield and we got a warning from the Met Office last nite saying that wind speeds were expected to be in excess of 70 mph, if it is anything like that round cheltenham, I wouldnt think they would go ahead for a second. The thing with big flat pieces of land (like racecourses) and storms is that there is no cover from the wind and lightning takes the shortest path to earth. My employer has a duty of care under the health and safety at work act that we down tools in storm conditions and in terms of cheltenham as an employer they have that same duty of care, not to mention their obligations to the public.
If Cheltenham went ahead and something went wrong that could have been avoided then it would have huge implications to racing, not least because the contingencies against a future recurrence would be much more extreme than today presently appears to be.
I guess us fans of the winter sport have to accept that abandonment is just a part of the sport – how many times have we been half way to the races just to hear its off on the radio?
You just don’t expect it at the festival though – was the 78 Gold Cup the last time a day was lost? I remember very clearly the ’87 Gold Cup being delayed for ages because of the snow.
On a positive note, lets thank our lucky stars that it isn’t 2001 again – at least we still have a festival this year.
Rightly or wrongly, the decision has been made.
All the more races to savour tomorrow – if it goes ahead.
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All of Thursday’s card will now be run on the Old Course.
KC, I’ve sent you a PM.
I’m still a bit confused – which races that should have been run on the Old Course today will now be run on the New Course on Friday? Does this slightly change the distance of those races or the emphasis on speed/stamina?
I think I can just about understand the excitement Cheltenham brings to "racing" people but at the end of the day it’s only a race meeting and the correct decision was made in the interest of public safety, we can’t have peoples lives in danger due to something crazy like high winds. Imagine for a moment the meeting went ahead and there was chaos with debris flying all over the place and people being injured?
Better safe than sorry every time for me.
Being stuck in Melbourne I was just about to tuck in for a long night in front of the PC only to find out now I get a good night sleep and an earlier start tomorrow night. Result for me!
The first for a while in fact!!
In respect to the Cheltenham executive, they’ve made the call early and it could properly blow up in their faces if the wind dies off and then get 12 inches of rain overnight and have to abandon tomoz or Friday. They’ll look pretty farking stupid then.
Gusting up to 45 mph there at the moment and is forecast to continue until this evening. Desperately disappointing but can you simply can’t knowingly put the safety of over 50000 thousand people at risk for even a fraction of a second. Can you imagine the outcry if something were to happen. Its very easy to sit in front of a computer and commentate but the police and the management have to make these decisions in realtime. They don’t make theses decisions to deliberately piss people off.
Temporary tented villages are part and parcel of every major annual sporting event these days. I haven’t been to Cheltenham but I’m sure the general public use these marquees as well.
Tomorrow looks better weatherwiswe and there’s always Huntingdon for today.
The gusts are very, very strong here in Cheltenham. What would have happened if one of the termporary structures blew across the course, hitting horses?
That was one of the fears, certainly. Edward Gillespie’s contention was that as the winds were westerly in direction, any loose structures, furniture, pitches, whatever else blown out of the tented village would go across the track rather than over the road or into the car parks.
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.
Sounds like a good sensible decision to call off racing today. I am not too far away from Cheltenham and the winds are very bad. Public safety has to come first simple as that, you cant race horses with loads of temporary structures that could potentially fly all over the place and kill people and horses.
If they went with racing today and people died at Cheltenham as well as horses being hit with missiles, then everyone would be saying what a ridiculous decision it was to go ahead with the meeting and it would be bad for racings image.
Its cancelled on the advice of the police. If the police tell you to cancel the days racing then you simply have to cancel it. You dont have a choice in the matter.
Its a bit annoying but just one of those things. Deal with it and move forward.
People are capable of looking after themselves and making their own decisions regarding their safety
That’s placing a lot of store in 65,000 leaving the course in a calm and orderly state were the roof to blow off a stand for example, rather than the more natural, self-preserving inclination to one for one’s life.
The IRA-induced evacuation at Aintree in 1997 was well-observed and reflection terrifically on everyone who vacated the premises quickly and responsibly, but the threat to everyone’s wellbeing that day was that the worst only might happen, not – as in this hypothetical case – that it already has.
Disgraceful – noticeably not one of the C4 team has said anything to question the merits of the decision all being politically correct and to be honest false as the proverbial.
A small point of order – could we dispense with the lazy, automatic misuse of the term “politically correct” as the reason for an unpopular decision, please? It is strictly a term used with regard to minimising offense to racial, cultural, sexual or other identity groups – nothing about this morning’s developments has anything to do with these.
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.
I was one of the people inconvenienced by the abandonment having to turn back home, however, it’s 100% the correct decision.
You can’t mess about with people’s safety, the course wouldn’t be covered on their public liability insurance and, god forbid, if anything did happen the same people who are complaining today would be calling for the heads of Gillespie and co as well as looking to take Cheltenham to court via one of these ‘where there is blame there is a claim’ cowboy solicitors!!
The weather forecast is set fair for the next two days, no racing will be lost and we’ve got two cracking days racing to look forward to on Thursday/Friday.
but what about people who backed horses last night because of todays conditions? It could pelt down all night or the ground could dry out, makes it a completely different ball game.
It could equally have rained solidly for two hours before the first race and all the way through the card instead, Greatwood Hurdle day-stylee. An occasional but unavoidable issue with a sport played outdoors.
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.
People are capable of looking after themselves and making their own decisions regarding their safety
That’s placing a lot of store in 65,000 leaving the course in a calm and orderly state were the roof to blow off a stand for example, rather than the more natural, self-preserving inclination to one for one’s life.
The IRA-induced evacuation at Aintree in 1997 was well-observed and reflection terrifically on everyone who vacated the premises quickly and responsibly, but the threat to everyone’s wellbeing that day was that the worst only might happen, not – as in this hypothetical case – that it already has.
Disgraceful – noticeably not one of the C4 team has said anything to question the merits of the decision all being politically correct and to be honest false as the proverbial.
A small point of order – could we dispense with the lazy, automatic misuse of the term “politically correct” as the reason for an unpopular decision, please? It is strictly a term used with regard to minimising offense to racial, cultural, sexual or other identity groups – nothing about this morning’s developments has anything to do with these.
gc
No we couldn’t. You can have your view on the meaning of “politically correct” and I’ll have mine.
but what about people who backed horses last night because of todays conditions? It could pelt down all night or the ground could dry out, makes it a completely different ball game.
It could equally have rained solidly for two hours before the first race and all the way through the card instead, Greatwood Hurdle day-stylee. An occasional but unavoidable issue with a sport played outdoors.
gc
You know that you check weather forecasts and take your chances you do not expect the meeting to be re-arranged for the wind.
How many people woke up this morning even contemplating the possibility of todays racing being called off? I didn’t see one single post suggesting the possibility.
Could of been worse. The festival could have been held at Haydock in which case all the fences would have blown away last seen careering down the M62!!
Tell me about it – mum and dad are flying in from their holidays today, assuming the snow and gales haven’t forced cessation of all flights into Manchester!
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.
No we couldn’t. You can have your view on the meaning of "politically correct" and I’ll have mine.
Not a problem, brave sir knight. I’ll just stick with the right one, then.
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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