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The final jumps meeting was held at Enghien today, it will be only holding trotting racing at the racecourse from now on.
And to quote my contact in France:
It’s reckoned that Fontainebleau and Compiegne will absorb the lost Enghien races and there’s even a rumour that Maisons-Laffitte may start hosting jumps races again (they used to have cross-country steeplechases until 1994).
Well’s that one less French meeting where I won’t have to compile speed figures for…
Mike.
More adieu than au revoir, I think. Why has this happened?
Enghien has two big trotting Group 1s, the Atlantique in the spring (2150m) and Washington in July (1609m, ie one mile), so the track doesn’t seem to be short of funds or prestige.
It is purely down to costs, at the moment Longchamp is being upgraded.
There are so many racecourses in France, if I was to put up a list here it would drop off the screen.
When I sat down and compile a set of french standard times, due to the number of racecourses, we settled on only the class 1,2 and 3 racecourses, the provincial class 4 racecourses I didn’t bother with.
Can you imagine compiling standard times for 200+ French racecourses, you would get an entry in the Guiness book of records…
Mike.
Are you saying it’s the cost to the track itself of maintaining the turf track compared to the trotting track (it must be two or three times the acreage).
Or that it’s France Galop that’s short of money and can’t afford to subsidise Enghien’s jump meetings? (Cheval Francais, who run the track, are all about trotting).
Sorry to keep firing questions at you!
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