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With novice hurdles too many of the good prospects are in too few hands these days; then when there is a good one running nobody wants to run and risk being within a few lengths of it.
I think the fact that today’s card at Musselburgh has been abandoned due to frost is a perfect illustration of the problems facing owners sending horses a long way when the meeting could be off.
I think the fact that today’s card at Musselburgh has been abandoned due to frost is a perfect illustration of the problems facing owners sending horses a long way when the meeting could be off.
Unless of course you train at Glenfarg, Kinneston, Milnathort, Uplawmoor, Langholm, Hawick, Bonchester Bridge, Greenlaw, Carluke, Morpeth, Capheaton, Penrith, Wigton, Alnwick and even Northern Ireland (Crawford S regularly). Never stops the likes of Donald McCain and John Ferguson travelling on a regular basis.
Admittedly Jackie Stephen would have a long trip, but then Inverurie is a long way to any racecourse, and in general she sensibly sticks to the spring to autumn period!
The likes of Neil King, David Pipe, Evan Williams & Dan Skelton were happy to bring horses to Scotland over the holiday period.
Rob
You keep bringing up the prize money, but the fact is that it’s extremely rare to hear anybody connected with NH racing complain about it.
Permit me, perhaps, to mention the boycotts of novice hurdles at Sedgefield (05/09/03) and Worcester (11/07/12), which cut up to a match and a walkover respectively; ditto Charlie Mann’s repeated threats to turn his back on Towcester for failing to raise their game winnings-wise.
That said, though, those boycotts were admittedly nine years apart without any recorded repeat instance, and Mann gets more easily riled about the state of the game than most of his contemporaries.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
The track at Musselburgh doesn’t bear much resemblance to Cheltenham, does it. They couldn’t be more different. To call it a Cheltenham Trials day is an inaccurate description.
Spot on. Why hold a northern trials day at what is an essentially a Flat track?
I’ve been left incredulous at how many people elsewhere in cyberspace took Current Event’s victory in the hunter chase on the Musselburgh card as proof in and of itself that he was a serious candidate for the Foxhunter.
For my money, though, a win in a slowly run 3m3f hunter around a flat, speedy track isn’t especially informative where a 3m2f event likely to be run at eyeballs-out pace around an undulating, galloping venue is concerned.
I’d still sooner be looking out for eyecatching performances in any of the pre-Cheltenham Open Points run at Ampton or Horseheath (both right-handers, but hilly and with plenty of downhill fences), or even Brocklesby Park (basically Newbury-like, but with big stiff fences that’d shame most Rules venues). Such events have gone the way of Cappa Bleu, Bon Accord and Amicelli in recent years. Significant? Often so.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Tony Martin’s Edeymi qualified for the Pertemps
You didn’t notice ?
All part of the plan no doubt.
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