Dry conditions affecting Virginia-Maryland steeplechasing

[Miss Woodford]

Apparently we aren’t immune to it either.
I point you to the overnight for Saturday’s My Lady’s Manor races (incredible field, by the way)
http://www.nationalsteeplechase.com/wp- … cratch.pdf
Note the description of the turf on the second page: “bone dry”. It’s been lovely weather, but we haven’t had much rain at all in the past few weeks.
That isn’t bad news for all horses, though. From the Steeplechase Times http://www.st-publishing.com/cms2/index … s-in-manor

The biggest obstacle on the day might be the footing, a dry and firm turf course done in by a lack of rain this spring. Organizers aerated this week, which will help, but trainers were still weighing the options.

“The ground is a concern to everybody and it’s going to be that way everywhere until we get some rain,” said Dowling, who rides out for Fisher in the mornings. “Bubble seems to run better on the better ground than he does on the heavy though, and hopefully there will be a stronger pace which will suit him as well.”

They are aerating the courses for this and other big races, but unfortunately point-to-points don’t usually have the money. And so, last weekend the conditions for the Old Dominion Hunt Point-to-Point were officially listed as hard. Everyone else is still calling theirs firm, but I’m sure they’ll start having to tell the truth soon enough.

And yet, the show goes on. Nobody has gotten hurt so far, there aren’t any more scratches than normal, and actually cancelling/postponing fixtures is unthinkable.

[Miss Woodford]

Update: The Maryland Grand National meeting was run on ground labeled "hard". First time I’ve seen that designation at a sanctioned meet.
http://www.nationalsteeplechase.com/wp- … tional.pdf
While there

were

a ton of scratches (12) every horse finished in good order.

[itsawar]

Well maybe they will race over concrete if the grounds to hard!

[Author]

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