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Lydia’s article was good but im not sure that dragging kempton into the argument was totally relevant and the excuse that top Haydock jumps meeting crowds are affected by the TV coverage doesnt entirely wash with me either
Good article from Lydia.<br>Kempton’s quality of racing is probably no worse than it was on turf, but I think that its position with potential local racegoers is irrevocable.<br>Horses seem to outnumber paying patrons and rails bookies in a soulless scenario akin to outdoor virtual racing. Would you want to pay £11 or so to watch a meeting like last Sunday’s?<br>Good betting shop fodder though.<br>
Recent events at Lingfield show thought that the course is hardly ideal for jumps racing. So many of them have been run on barely raceable ground or have been abandoned.
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Quote: from davidjohnson on 1:19 pm on Feb. 28, 2007[br]Recent events at Lingfield show thought that the course is hardly ideal for jumps racing. So many of them have been run on barely raceable ground or have been abandoned.
<br> Surely the same applies at Haydock Park – even more so when all jump races are run on the same course?
Agree grayson – excellent article by Lydia Hislop, even if she was far too charitable. I thought Tellwright had argued that the portables were for "equine welfare" purposes? If so, he seems to have changed his tune.
Racing is really just run by just out of school arse wipes comparing bottom lines on each others spreadsheets and imagining they are going to make illusionary profits, if it all goes according to plan .. just like it did at Kempton.
Don’t think we managed to establish it first time round, but is Kirkland Tellwright part of the same Tellwright dynasty that presided over the closure of Woore racecourse in the 1960s? Bit of previous there if so. God help us if he takes up the space vacated by Charles Barnett at my beloved Cartmel (or of course Aintree)…
gc<br>
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
It isn’t that TV coverage is effecting attendance at Haydock’s jumps meetings. What the article said was that because most of their jumps racing is carried on terrestrial TV they don’t get BAGS payments for those races. Whereas they get paid, in RHT’s case, £4300 per race for non-terrestrial TV covered races – if my memory serves me correctly. Which is one of the reasons low quality flat meets are more profitable for them than jumps racing.
Maxse’s comments gave an insight into the likely future direction of flat racing. If he is right that Kempton is meeting it’s financial targets by putting on low quality racing that few people go to see, but the profits are made from BAGS payments, reductions in overhead costs (less staff for example), minimal prize money additions and presumably corporate entertaining judging by the high prices they charge for that, then that is a model other courses could follow.
Haydock have just varied the model. Whilst most likely putting on low grade racing which racegoers don’t go to watch, they intend to replace racegoers with people spending large sums of money getting smashed.
Suppose their defence would be that the profits from Friday nights enable them to fund their quality racing. In which case, it will be interesting to see what happens to Haydock’s contribution toprize money next year.
richard
"I commend Bill Whittle (Haydock chairman) and his team on an excellent example of strategic thinking to ensure that the racecourse is assured of a sustainable and prosperous future, which will be of benefit to racegoers and participants in both codes alike".
Not my words, the words of Levy Board Chief Executive Sir Tristram Ricketts
Right thats OK then!!!!
The last ditch at Haydock was always a good test now it’s just an upturned dandy brush. For all supporters of Ascot & Wetherby, Ascot has a number of portable of fences as it is and Wetherbys abandoned card earlier this week was pathetic in both quality and prize money and not the first there.
the portible fences used in the streight at ascot and kempton come in sections that are put together and stay in place for duration of meeting.<br>haydocks will be far worse being fences on trollys that will be weeled on and of the course when a hurdle race is needed,just like it is at that other "top" jumps course southwell
The portables that Doncaster was using prior to closure looked half decent, so if Haydock can be persuaded to use something similar, rather than the joke fences of this year, it might still be a test of sorts.
Quote: from runandskip on 6:45 am on Mar. 2, 2007[br]the portible fences used in the streight at ascot and kempton come in sections that are put together and stay in place for duration of meeting.<br>
<br>Think Musselburgh’s are similar, judging by the spare pieces of fence regularly seen littering the outfield there.
gc<br>
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Southern Lord Snooty softies Nicholls and Hobbs now toeing the Haydock line!
Rough, tough no-nonsense two fingers telling it like it is however! Go Harvey, Go Harvey, Go Harvey……
Quote: from runandskip on 6:45 am on Mar. 2, 2007[br]<br>haydocks will be far worse being fences on trollys that will be weeled on and of the course when a hurdle race is needed,just like it is at that other "top"  jumps course southwell<br>
I hope they aren’t the same type at southwell. I saw them close up when Wolverhampton were using them and they were horrible constructions, a few twiggy bits stuck in a metal frame.
Rob
<br>Everybody is talking about the fences, but what about the hurdles – presumably they will also have to be the portable so called ‘brush’ hurdles that Haydock have been trialling for a couple of years.
I actually think they are OK and they do ensure that horses have to make a proper shape over the obstacle, unlike the panel jobs that can be knocked flat.
But their spread to Haydock will mean their use in major races for the first time and the form over them doesnt seem to work out back over standard hurdles.
It really adds a third type of racing to the NH calendar – hurdling, brush hurdling and chasing, all seeming to require different techniques.
One last thought – how do you deal with a portable water jump? Given the things being said about the Haydock management, I can’t rid my head of an image of an empty water jump being pushed onto the track and then filled up by a group of clowns with a toy fire engine, rushing around pretending to throw water over the crowd.
AP
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