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Fair comment Colin.
There are currently seven non-runners at Taunton – all travel.
More pointedly there are currently 16 non-runners at Southwell, all but one due to travel.
I can’t see why there should be too much of a problem with salt supplies.
We have sufficient reserves to last hundreds of years in the UK.
I sometimes wonder whether the police could be more definitive in these situations. Every time it snows like this, we get the warning not to travel unless your journey is essential. Now I take that to mean people commuting, doing their weekly shopping or going racing should not be making such a journey. Yet the roads still clog up with people going about their normal business.
Perhaps if the message was not to travel unless it is an emergency, that would make it simpler for sporting venues and employees/employers alike.
I still work in Birmingham two days a week, but live around 20 miles away. I didn’t go in on Monday and if the forecasts are to be believed, tomorrow’s driving conditions will be treacherous. Yet I know for a fact there will be people who will treat getting into work as though they were delivering emergency supplies to a stranded arctic expedition and will force their way through no matter what – all to sit at a desk for a day doing a not particularly important job. Knowing this, others will be put under pressure to try and make it in and then you have roads jammed full of people making non-essential journeys.
If the police were simply to say that they advise no-one to travel unless it is an emergency, that would also take the heat off sporting venues who have no control over the surrounding roads.
In the winter of ’63, before most folk had even heard of Milton Keynes, that area of North Bucks had far more snow that drifted high above the hedges and stayed for weeks.
Despite the last twenty years of people moaning about how we no longer get a proper winter and how we need a good frost to kill off all the foreigners etc etc, I think a basic reason why England cannot cope with the few flurries we get almost every winter is that drivers don’t gear up properly.
Grit -salt cannot have much effect on snow; drivers need suitable studded tyres or snow-chains, as used by countries that deal with winter on a regular basis.
County Councils, like the British and Irish governments, couldn’t organise and run a penny-bun stall at the best of times, despite charging a fortune, so I wouldn’t expect much from them.A major problem in all natural adversity, such as floods, blizzards, storms, is that any silly-bollocks who gets in trouble can block and impede the way for the rest, regardless of their ability. " Finding trouble in running" is likely.
A chain cannot be stronger than its weakest link, so breakdown is almost inevitable, imo. Even an iceroad expert from Canada wouldn’t make much headway over here because of the obstructions.
Not to worry; it will probably all blow over before Easter; that still leaves plenty of time for dozens of anti-AW threads and a much rarer mutter about all the NH cancellations.
My trusty steed will get me through, I hope.
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And if racing had been called off because of road conditions, rather than the state of the respective course, we’d have had a ten-page thread complaining that the decision to travel is ours to make and no-one else’s.
The British, they’re never satisfied (and pathetic when it comes to any extremes of weather, be it heavy rain, snow or heat).
I do think Seabird is right, if the roads around Taunton are fairly good then they have to go ahead. Even if it is only local trainers that can get there.
It is strange how the snow is so localised. I am sat at my parents place, Romsey, just north of Southampton. My place is only 24 miles away and our village is almost cut off. Well, not strange at all really, because the stuff fell as rain where I am now and got colder as it crossed land before depositing as snow high up on the hills of Wiltshire.
I can’t see what the fuss is about, with Councils almost running out of grit. This sort of thing happens once every twenty odd years. Are the Councils really supposed to spend our money stock piling grit on a 20/1 chance? So, there are ungrited roads out there; stay at home then.
Mark
Value Is EverythingAre the Councils really supposed to spend our money stock piling grit on a 20/1 chance?
I would rather my Council spend more on infrastructure services than waste it on making sure every leaflet they produce is available in any one of 22 different languages.
Anyway, correct me if I am wrong, but grit does not go "off" as far as I am aware so stockpiling would not be an ongoing cost. It is no different than paying an insurance premium.
Economically, its important that racing resumes wherever possible. Cant afford too many blank days in the current economic climate I would have thought. Like with all decisions, there’s usually many factors to consider.
From reading the posts about road conditions though, does sound like Southern Englad councils are pretty badly prepared. I live near Edinburgh and, despite there being no snow here just now, the roads have been gritted!!!
What’s grit??
We don’t get any – until late morning it was virtually impossible to leave the village and more difficult than that to get back in. By late morning the dumb or the very brave were attempting to drive in the ice, slush and snow.
Sean Rua has it about right – as a country we are ill-prepared for any extremes of weather, be it snow, rain, lack of rain, wind, heat – you name it.
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Maybe we are just a nation of whingers, whereas the Swiss and Canadians just get on with it?
Crass irresponsibility is the latest brainwave from Kempton ~ if tomorrow’s meeting has to be abandoned, we’ll stage it on Saturday! Erm, what about Newbury?? What about organising staff – from the racecourse to the bookmakers to the various affiliated organisations who have to send staff (RDT, RaceTech, Judges, officials, TurfTV, catering companies) to the jockeys to the valets to the trainers to the horses to the stable staff??
GC, we won wars because
everyone
was out there with the Saxa and the spades at some point.
Trust me, our neighbourhood’s been out in force with the Saxa, and picked the Sikh grocery store around the corner from me completely clean of it after that, but even a concerted effort from one suitably exercised group of 60-70 individuals only goes so far when there’s a whole town gone without salting.
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.
It’s funny the difference a few miles makes Jeremy .
I was speaking to someone else near you this morning and they were saying it wasn’t as bad today – yet here in MK we have the worse weather so far – we have had 4-5 inches overnight, although it has stopped now. Conditions are certainly a lot worse then the other morning.
That I can well believe! Hitchin, Stevenage and Chesham seemed to be the southernmost peripheries of the dangerous weather around here – shame I live in the first-named and wanted to travel to the last-named, really.
The national forecasters are worried enough about the Chilterns in particular (minimum eight inches tomorrow) that they’re mentioning that area explicitly on the forecasts at the moment – doesn’t look like I’m doing Chesham tomorrow either, 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.
I have decided I am going racing tomorrow, come what may, having not been racing since Tuesday last week I am getting the DT’s
The order of preference tomorrow is Fontwell, Bangor, Kempton, Southwell or Wolves.
I have a horrible feeling it may well end up being Southwell – but needs must.
It does mean I am going to have to do racecards for both Fontwell and Bangor tonight as they mean early starts in the morning.
Sure fire problem to get it sorted.
1 Go to all the Take Aways,Fast Food,Burger Vans etc and requisiton all the salt that they have.
2 Ring up all the unemployed and even better the bankers and tell them to go buy a spade and some salt and get shovelling to get an extra £200 in their dole
3 Go to the JCB factories and get all the diggers,tractors with snow plows and employ people who can drive them to get shovelling
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