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Seems to me that the only realistic response to this problem is for the courses to be more flexible with their race times and to have a contingency plan in place.
For example, next Saturday, Cheltenham have moved their chases to be races two, three and four on a seven race card, with the last one off at 14:00, which should ensure they don’t have to leave out any fences if the weather is good.
But Doncaster have their last chase off at 2:50, less than an hour before sunset. If it’s a sunny day, that Graded novice chase will be run eight fences short with a 6F run-in.
Going back to Aintree, a bit of forethought could have seen them swap the start times of the handicap hurdle and the Listed chase, so that the chase was run at 2:05 instead of 2:40. But having fixed the times, even on the day, someone might have noticed that the sun was out and would be an issue at 2:40 a bit earlier than they did. A bit of flexibility could have seen the race delayed and staged after the last scheduled race at 3:15, just as soon as the four horses could be saddled and got to the start.
Of course that would have upset the TV schedules, but races being delayed for other reasons has happened (ambulances, injured horse or jockey on the track, etc). Even on one famous occasion, a Gold Cup put back about 90 minutes because of a sudden snow shower.
Seems to me that the only realistic response to this problem is for the courses to be more flexible with their race times and to have a contingency plan in place.
For example, next Saturday, Cheltenham have moved their chases to be races two, three and four on a seven race card, with the last one off at 14:00, which should ensure they don’t have to leave out any fences if the weather is good.
But Doncaster have their last chase off at 2:50, less than an hour before sunset. If it’s a sunny day, that Graded novice chase will be run eight fences short with a 6F run-in.
Going back to Aintree, a bit of forethought could have seen them swap the start times of the handicap hurdle and the Listed chase, so that the chase was run at 2:05 instead of 2:40. But having fixed the times, even on the day, someone might have noticed that the sun was out and would be an issue at 2:40 a bit earlier than they did. A bit of flexibility could have seen the race delayed and staged after the last scheduled race at 3:15, just as soon as the four horses could be saddled and got to the start.
Of course that would have upset the TV schedules, but races being delayed for other reasons has happened (ambulances, injured horse or jockey on the track, etc). Even on one famous occasion, a Gold Cup put back about 90 minutes because of a sudden snow shower.
Swapping hurdle races for chases won’t work as racecourses are now omitting hurdles for low sun as well.
If the races can’t be run as advertised then all bets should be refunded, it’s like betting on a football match and suddenly 5 minutes before kick off someone announces that there will be no corner kicks in the match.
If the race isn’t safe to run in it’s advertised form then it shouldn’t be run at all.
Is there any hard data on casualty rates (lethal and otherwise) pre and post 2001? Specifically reflecting the prominence of the sun. It’s probably been around fifteen years since I read anything by raceform but they used to note the weather iirc.
It’s all a moot discussion now since it’s a problem that will not go away until somebody invents an effective and efficient glare deflector on a gargantuan scale. As Big Mac alluded to, irrespective of science and logic, no racecourse wants to risk a human fatality being attributed to low sun. Not least because of the huge possible legal ramifications.
The only answer is to start racing at 10 AM in winter……get the jumps meetings out of the way by 1.30 then the AW can take over……..
What of the glare of the morning sun? Also, this would restrict racegoers to local tracks or having to stay at a b&b the night before.
At around the same time that AP mentions, Dec 2001, I was at Towcester . A fairly dismal 4 horse novices chase had the last three fences per circuit omitted. I remember having a bet on the enigmatic Prokofiev thinking the removal of the obstacles would enable him to power up the hill to victory. The theory proved to be worthless as he was a well beaten third.
That Towcester meeting was on the same day as the Sandown one. Some further checks have found one earlier example, as the two fences and the hurdle on the stretch away from the stands were bypassed due to low sun at Newcastle the previous weekend.
That was on Dec 1st, 2001 – does anybody know of an earlier occasion on which this happened?
And if that was the first, what changed on that date? It does seem a bit of a coincidence that three very different tracks all started bypassing fences within the space of a week, having never done so before.
I’m not convinced this started as a safety issue – it seems more like something that crept into the sport and rapidly became established as the right thing to do. Much as I’d like to see a return to the pre-2001 position, I accept that isn’t going to happen.
I really don’t have a problem with one fence being bypaassed, as happens at Sandown with the Pond fence, but the tracks that are now regularly having to leave out whole lines of fences really should be getting together with the BHA to establish the best long term approach, whether that is race timing, switching of fixtures to different times of the year, or developing some sort of technological answer.
That group should also be looking at France and Ireland, where nobody seems to have the same problem.
Here’s a clue, from the report on the Towcester meeting in the Racing Post:
Low sun meant that all three of the fences in the straight were missed out in the novice chase won by Mitcheldean, with five of the 16 fences bypassed in all.
Clerk of the course Charlie Moore said: "It was okay in the earlier races, but once the sun comes around towards sunset at this time of year it causes problems.
"The Jockey Club have changed the rules so that we can take more than two fences out per circuit, which is very sensible."
Now that it’s arguably ‘custom and practise’. who’s going to change it?
Even with altered race-times; what if there is a delay which makes a decision borderline? How do you establish an objective point at which the sun becomes ‘low’?
PJA and ROA would need to agree and, probably, sign a disclaimer.
It’s happening in a tiny percentage of races, and, imo, should just be left as it is. It’s slightly annoying, but nothing more, (to me at least)
I don’t know how easy it is to reposition a blimp at fairly short notice, but I’d have thought someone like Paddy Power would have snapped up a PR opportunity like this…
Paddy Power the ultimate safety Sun Block
I think the real problem is the litigious nature of modern society – something that’s got considerably worse since 2001.
If jockeys are requesting removal of fences due to low sun, who realistically is going to turn them down? It would only need one serious accident and the course and authorities would be swamped with lawyers.
Mike
I don’t know how easy it is to reposition a blimp at fairly short notice, but I’d have thought someone like Paddy Power would have snapped up a PR opportunity like this…
Paddy Power the ultimate safety Sun Block
But wouldn’t it have to follow the runners round?!!
Mike
I don’t know how easy it is to reposition a blimp at fairly short notice, but I’d have thought someone like Paddy Power would have snapped up a PR opportunity like this…
Paddy Power the ultimate safety Sun Block
But wouldn’t it have to follow the runners round?!!
Mike
Nope. Park it in front of the sun – albeit, it would need to be a big blimp!
I don’t know how easy it is to reposition a blimp at fairly short notice, but I’d have thought someone like Paddy Power would have snapped up a PR opportunity like this…
Paddy Power the ultimate safety Sun Block
But wouldn’t it have to follow the runners round?!!
Mike
Nope. Park it in front of the sun – albeit, it would need to be a big blimp!
Could be worse, I suppose. It could be VY Canis Majoris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=g4iD-9GSW-0#t=49
Mike
I don’t know how easy it is to reposition a blimp at fairly short notice, but I’d have thought someone like Paddy Power would have snapped up a PR opportunity like this…
Paddy Power the ultimate safety Sun Block
But wouldn’t it have to follow the runners round?!!
Mike
Nope. Park it in front of the sun – albeit, it would need to be a big blimp!
In the age of accelerating drone technology, having a couple hold up a large piece of tarpaulin wouldn’t be the worst idea. Indeed, it would be quite cost effective since it could be taken from course to course in a small trailer, it wouldn’t take long to set up and if the weather is sufficiently dull, one wouldn’t have wasted the resources needed to hire a blimp. It would even be paid for in full by any number of the money grubbing bookies who blight the sport.
You’re welcome.
Could be worse, I suppose. It could be VY Canis Majoris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=g4iD-9GSW-0#t=49
Mike
Cool video. I always liked this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q
Anyways, if we were in the orbit of VY Canis Majoris, wouldn’t it still proportionately still be the same size in our sky given the distance we’d have to be away from it in order for life to survive?
Anyways, if we were in the orbit of VY Canis Majoris, wouldn’t it still proportionately still be the same size in our sky given the distance we’d have to be away from it in order for life to survive?
It would have to be a long way away(!) from it’s ‘habitable zone’ for planets.
Doubt if that would be mathematically proportionate – would depend on dispersal of light and heat I suppose.
Have a read about Galaxy IC1011. It is over 1 billion light years away and contains around
one hundred trillion
stars.
That’s 100,000,000,000,000 (I think). Our Milky Way – with some 200 billion stars – is a rather pathetic backwater by comparison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_1101
Mike
A silly answer would be run the meeting at night, under floodlights.
That would be life imitating art – or spoof art, at any rate. Anyone else remember the
Million Watt Chase
, a made-up floodlit steeplechase "run" as an April Fool’s gag that
Sport on Two
played on its listeners back in 1991 (Peter Bromley commentary, Jenny Pitman/Willie Carson interviews and all)?
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Here’s a famous Hubble Deep Field image of some 10,000 galaxies (galaxies not stars).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/NASA-HS201427a-HubbleUltraDeepField2014-20140603.jpg
Now try this:
– Walk to a deserted beach (optional, back garden’s fine) with visibility of the entire night sky.
– Place one grain of sand on the tip of your forefinger.
– Now extend your arm fully and hold out your forefinger to the sky.The amount of visible space this photograph covers is more-or-less equal to the amount of sky obscured by the grain of sand.
Mike
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