- This topic has 22 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 19 years ago by
.
- Posts
A total fiasco.
Whatever happened to the plan of running the chases earlier on the card, so that the low sun wouldn’t be a problem?
Did Claisse imagine that the sun would be setting behind Cleeve hill this January?
Kid-glove "criticism" from C4, of course.<br>
(Edited by Venusian at 5:39 pm on Jan. 27, 2007)
Total farce and a disgrace to racing. This has happened before and they’ve talked about putting the chases early in the afternoon.
I’m sure Stormez didn’t run that far the year he won the 3m 3f "flat" race.
I agree that this situation is ridiculous and should not happen at the heart of national hunt racing. Just put the chases on earlier. I can’t remember this happening until recent years – why is this? Is it because we have become more safety conscious?….which is not a bad thing.
That’s the second such example I know of inside of a week. I love Towcester to the point of madness, but starting a midwinter meeting at 13.40 for a 16.10 finish was asking for trouble if the sun stayed out. Lo and behold it did just that, and all three fences in the final chase (penultimate race on the card) were omitted, reducing a 15-fence event to a 9-fence one with a revised length of run-in to rival Cartmel’s. Oops.
Jeremy<br>(graysonscolumn)<br>
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.
<br>Apart from the obvious questions like why is the sun suddenly more dangerous than for the previous hundred years and why do Cheltenham never learn the timing lesson, there’s one other thing that bugs me.
Why do they always wait until the horses are down at the start before they even start thinking about bypassing fences. The sun was out all afternoon, so why isn’t someone anticipating this problem twenty minutes before the race.
At least that way punters would get a decent advance warning and be saved from wasting money backing a top class jumper in a flat race.
How long before we get a ‘chase’ with half the fences omitted due to ‘false ground’ (the excuse for leaving out all the fences on the far side at Muselburgh recently) and the other half omitted due to a low sun.
Btw, part of the reason for tracks starting meetings knowing that fences or hurdles will be left out is financial – if the meeting isn’t staged, then the prize money doesn’t count towards next years allocation of the Levy.
AP
It was a total shambles. After the debacle at the Paddy Power in 2005, the management promised action. But quite why they allowed a chase to be scheduled ayt 3.55 is beyond me. After all the messing about, the sun was so low and behind the clouds that there was no problem from the sun.
This makes racing look completely stupid. Cheltenham never seem to learn.
<br>I feel agrived cos I’d backed New Alco who stays all day, but needs to jump fences to show his true colours.
Putting the chases on earlier in the card does not solve the problem. The modern day jockeys don’t like jumping hurdles into the sun either.
Fully agree with you AP.
Cleeve should have been run @ 3.55 with the h’cap chase brought forward to 2.10. Timeform Chase could have opened the card if they wanted to avoid running one h’cap chase after another….
According to RUK, the problem has nothing to do with the demolition of the old Tote building so can anyone enlighten me?
(Edited by PAULCS at 11:23 pm on Jan. 27, 2007)
- Total Posts 17716
Quote: from Wallace on 11:13 pm on Jan. 27, 2007[br]Putting the chases on earlier in the card does not solve the problem.  The modern day jockeys don’t like jumping hurdles into the sun either.<br>
Wallace
Never been there for this meeting, but I believe the grandstand would block the sun from the hurdles course?
I guess Channel 4 would never agree to it but why can’t the meeting start at 12.30 and with 7 races run at 30 minute intervals the last race would start at 3.30.
I remember this is roughly what the BBC did when they covered Cheltenham but whether they did it because of the setting sun or so they could bring us the joys of Rugby League or Indoor Bowls in a more convenient time slot is open to debate.;)
The comical thing about this was that by the time the race was actually run, the sun had disappeared behind the stand.
i think the clerk of the course was cought napping he should have down by the last fence when the runners went to post to assess the sun. <br>the race was already 5 mins late off when he passed me on the members lawn going to have a look.<br>what with jockeys not wanting to jump in the sun and the softening of the fences at the top tracks it seems health and safety has arrived to the world of jumping.
I certainly won’t complain about the BBC putting quality high class rugby league on Pat. It’s the dross we’re having to put up with for the next 6 weeks people should complain about :)
(Edited by Irish Stamp at 3:38 pm on Jan. 28, 2007)
Quote: from Pat123 on 12:45 am on Jan. 28, 2007[br]I guess Channel 4 would never agree to it but why can’t the meeting start at 12.30 and with 7 races run at 30 minute intervals the last race would start at 3.30.
There really isn’t the need to finish as early as 3.30 now as day length is increasing rapidly with the sun currently setting approximately 50 minutes later than at it’s winter minimum in mid-December. In the case of Cheltenham sunset yesterday was at 4.47pm so with the ’10 minutes before sunset’ rule (I think) for last race commencement, running it at 4.30 was fine.
And personally – other than the obvious necessity of noon starts during the ‘dark days’ of late autumn, early winter – I’m not keen on early starts, particularly when going racing as it inevitably involves a degree of rush, rush, rush. The C4 covered meetings starting around 1.15 during the summer – in order to preserve Countdown’s afternoon slot – are a particular bug bear.
Apparently the ‘experts’ utilised by Cheltenham to assess the sun’s impact for this meeting decided it would be ‘safe’ for chases to be run after 3.50, meaning that the 3.55 start should have been okay and – as Smithy points out – it very nearly was, so the sensible thing to do would have been to delay the race for a few minutes in order to allow all fences to be jumped rather than waste those minutes dolling them off.
It ain’t rocket science forecasting the track and height of the sun at any particular time, on any particular day, at any partucular place during it’s annual cycle so methinks said ‘experts’ slightly cocked up what should have been a straightforward request.
The clerk also reported that the low sun wasn’t directly ‘over’ the fences as it was at earlier meetings but at a more westerly angle (as of course it would be by late January), so I reckon it’s fair to state that the jockeys are making far too much of this ‘dangerous low sun’ business. In effect mirroring society in general with it’s overly cautious attitude to health and safety.
That said, it would seem wise to run chases earlier on the cards of sun affected courses, if only to avoid any possibilty of late fence omission; doing which makes a mockery of such races both from a spectacle and betting point of view.
Thankfully, there will be no concerns at the Festival nor – I sincerely hope – at any other courses this season now that we are approaching post 5pm sunsets.
<br>Drone,
Agree with all you say, but the later sunsets can still cause problems at evening meetings! There were a number of examples last spring of bypassed fences in the later races through April and May.
It’s definitely time that the authorities and the jocks got together to sort this out. Whereas twenty years ago missing out any fence meant immediate disqualification, now it seems to be ‘if in doubt, take em out’.
The record for 2007 so far is held by Musselburgh, who omitted 8 fences in a 3M chase, closely followed by Huntingdon, who left out 7 fences in both their 3M chases last Wednesday.
But the worst example of all was at Doncaster about two years ago, when they bypassed all four fences in the straight in a 2m 3f chase. That meant a 7F run to the first, jump 7 fences and then a 6f run-in.
Until the beginning of 2002, there was a rule of racing (Rule 14 part III) that stated the stewards could authorise the bypassing of not more than two fences per circuit and only if not to do so would mean the meeting would have to be abandoned.
We seem to have moved a long way from that position in a short time. If ‘elf and safety’ is the justification, then surely NH racing is shooting itself in the foot by conceding that jumping fences can be unsafe!
AP
Aye, forgot about evening meetings; at this time of year they seem both a distant memory and such a long way off! Point taken and I really think it would be a good idea if the courses concerned followed Cheltenham’s lead of ascertaining just where the sun will be during their meetings and timing the chases accordingly. Lush spring grass growth and decent ground but omitted fences does appear daft.
Doncaster’s situation is akin to Cheltenham’s as the straight has a similar NE – SW trend. Midwinter pre-parade gazing can be a pain as the sun sets over the saddling box roof hence sillhouetting the horses. All being well that will be a thing of the past when ‘new’ Donny opens. Looking forward to it.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.