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Had perfectly good, safe fast ground, yet they chronically overwater it for their biggest day of the year and produce a shambolic surface. You only had to watch the Group 1 to see how few horses acted on it properly.
Punters had no chance and trainers and owners have been misled.
Tellwright should resign imo.
The picture on the front page of the racing section of the Sporting Life right now tells a tale.
(Red Clubs passing the line with clods of mud flying up behind him).
If that was Good to Firm I’ll show my arse on the Town Hall steps!
I don’t think Tellwright should resign, rather, he should be sacked, as should Needham.
sackings do tend to be more expensive for the employer, and more lucrative for employee, than resignations.
wit
Agreed it was a disgrace, but seeing as the incentives to water were put in place by some of his own owners my sympathies for Morrison are limited.
He should realise: If you lie down with the dogs you’re gonna get up with a few fleas.
Aside from the fact that your cheap jibe has no basis in reality (as per usual) – it wasn’t just Morrison who was put away, it was every owner and trainer involved with a fast ground horse and every punter who had studied and bet based on the official going description of g/f (gd).
And what about Chapple Hyam who pulled out 2 horses in the Sprint Cup due to "fast ground"?
Semantics TDK.
The big bookies own SIS, who in turn bung the racecourses £4k per race. This bung is witheld if fields are smaller than 8, hence the endless watering.
We’ll never see firm ground again, away from Bath, as long as the big bookies punish courses that produce it.
There was no need for the wretched man to water the course at all, what was he "thinking" about?
At this time of year, it’s not unreasonable to expect ground on the fast side of good after a dry week, and for the racecourse not to make a bollocks of it.
Needless to say, the criticism from C4 was pretty muted. Francome made a few rather mild remarks and Plunkett didn’t voice an opinion (or didn’t have one to voice, take your pick).
Don’t want to upset anyone do they?
No problem with watering to provide good or softish ground so long as they tell it as it is.
The goingstick was reporting 7.9 GF/G in places at 8am this morning. Is that not to be trusted like almost everything else in this game or did they water after the report was published?
How far down does the GoingStick go? Visually it looked like classic false ground – loose on top due to late watering that failed to get down into the ground.
Semantics TDK.
The big bookies own SIS, who in turn bung the racecourses £4k per race. This bung is witheld if fields are smaller than 8, hence the endless watering.
We’ll never see firm ground again, away from Bath, as long as the big bookies punish courses that produce it.
It isn’t semantics. Presumably you are referring to owners who are actually no longer owners in the yard, who work for a bookie that doesn’t own any part of SIS!
If the racecourses are feeling any pressure from bookmakers to water, then I am in full agreement that it is totally unacceptable.
Good to Soft ground reported as Good to Firm for one of the biggest sprints of the year not a disgrace?
thought it was a good days racing actually, three high weighted horses filled the first three places in the big long distance handicap. "disgrace" a bit of an overeaction.
Well that would be fine, IF they preferred a bit of cut in the ground!
If the racecourses……
Sorry, is there actually a debate on this? From where I’m standing all this overwatering started as soon as the big bookies started punishing courses for small fields.
While there are certain things the courses can do to have a minor impact on field size, such as making owners feel welcome, there is only one over-riding variable that they can control – the state of the ground. The trilateral commisssion knew this – which is why the policy was implemented by them. The fact that they did this via a company that only two of them have an official stake in is semantics. It was the trilateral commisssion where the policy eminated.
I don’t think it could be described as good -soft. There is a big difference between genuine weather induced good-soft ground and patchy overwatered fast ground. On the latter syrface many horses simply lose their confidence and don’t stride out at all – hence you get many horses running disappointingly and the field ends up strung out like washing
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