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My memory might be deceiving me, but I feel sure Chepstow used to be one of the top jumps tracks in the country.
Tomorrow – an uninspring six races worth £2,602, £1,952, £3,253, £6,505, £2,927 & £3,253 to the winner.
Worst of all for me; Grandstand & Paddock – £19.
The BHA should be looking at this. When fixtures are allocated, they should be done so with pre-defined conditions around Card Quality and related Prize Money.
It’s a Saturday after-all.
This Chepstow pre-Cheltenham card has been in place since before the gods were born. However, in years past it did at least contain some halfway decent fare.
The 1995 card, dated March 11th and once again three days prior to day one of the Festival, comprised;
– class 3 handicap chase (£4,795 to winner),
– class 3 novices’ hurdle (£13,875 to winner),
– class 2 Bet With The Tote Novices’ Handicap Chase Final (£13,875 to winner),
– class 2 juvenile novices’ handicap hurdle (£4,825 to winner),
– class 4 novices’ chase (£2,905 to winner),
– class 3 handicap hurdle (£4,825 to winner).The loss of the novices’ handicap chase series final since then is probably nothing Chepstow itself could have done about – didn’t Northern move that to the Midlands National fixture at Uttoxeter the following week not long after that?
As for the rest of it, yes, the mark-down in quality of race and prizemoney compared to 15 years ago is dramatic to say the least; but I can only think Northern have got away with bidding for the retention of that meeting with so little prizemoney pledged because nobody else has tried to wrest that slot from them. Got to be in to win it…
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.
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It’s not just Chepstow or the prize money available. Generally speaking all jump meetings held on the Saturday or even the week before Cheltenham tend to be full of horses that would have you pulling your hair out. Even the Imperial Gold Cup is normally won by a horse who falls well below the highest standard.
Comes as no surprise prize money is kept to a minimum by a course like Chepstow. If they doubled it I doubt they would attract anything better than what’s on offer. Trainers with good horses have Cheltenham and Aintree on their minds and today’s cards are more akin to good midweek meeting than they are a normal Saturday.
I think you are misspelling the name of the course, you left out the a between the e and the p.
I’ve only been to Chepstow once and have no desire to go back; when venturing forth to that part of the world we are sticking with Bangor from now on.[Given that we’ve also fallen out of love with Uttoxeter, which is our local track, could Northern Racing be responsible for the deterioration in the quality of racing at these tracks?; just a thought].
Or could it just be that Northern Racing gave in to economic reality after several years of putting on races on this card with £10K+ prize funds and getting fields of four or five runners despite providing good to soft or soft ground.
Just check out the results page for this fixture from 1998 to 2002 and you’ll see what I mean. I used to be a regular at this meeting through the 90’s, but I’d given up on it by 2002.
Chepstow dropped the meeting for the following two years, but it started up again in 2005 with the sort of program of lower grade fare we see today. I’m sure the suggestion that they have the fixture because nobody else wants it is correct.
Is all this down to Northern Racing, or is it the never ending growth of Cheltenham, both in terms of the number of races it offers, and the importance it has for owners and trainers. Nobody with a horse guaranteed a place in a Cheltenham handicap wants to run this week in case they get a penalty – but fifteen years ago, the Cheltenham handicaps didn’t all have their weights published weeks in advance of the meeting, but were run on the normal basis.
Nobody would dreram of doing it now, but when the 2M novice hurdle on the Chepstow card was known as the Panama Cigar Final, several horses ran in that and went on to run in the opener at Cheltenham.
One other point – the 3M novice handicap chase wasn’t switched from Chepstow to Uttoxeter. In 1995, A N C Express won both races a week apart – a happy punting memory that surrounded an awful week at the festival!
AP
Agree with you about the exorbitant cost for the fare provided. Chepstow is in a nice setting but everything else about it seems wrong. Poor viewing(no big screen when I went to a midweek meeting) stands of inadequate height for topography of the course. Bargain basement 20" cathode ray tube televisions in the bars mostly obscured by pillars. I`d be happy to go on the basis of having a day in the silver ring at what were silver ring prices but that`s no longer an option.
Is it just me that thinks there shouldn’t be any jumps racing on the weekend before Cheltenham?
I know the Lincoln meeting is the traditonal start of the flat season but I reckon if they had the first flat meeting the week before Cheltenham we’d be better off.
That way they could hold today’s Lincoln trial & the Winter Derby on turf for a start.Is it just me that thinks there shouldn’t be any jumps racing on the weekend before Cheltenham?
Certainly wouldn’t go that far, no; and on further reflection, what meetings there have been today and yesterday are pretty much the perfect ones, as they mostly impinge not one iota on the likely events at Prestbury Park a few days hence.
Nothing running in all the hunter chases we’ve just had can effect automatic qualification for the Foxhunters by winning any of those races (the deadline has passed), for example.
I wonder if this might be a good time of year to program in one or two all-bumper cards, enabling yards to get a debut outing into those stores / youngsters of theirs before putting them away over the summer.
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.
I agree Chepstow’s card today wasn’t top class but you don’t need lots of prize money to make for competitive action and I quite enjoyed following the racing today.
I will add into the mix the loss of BBC tv coverage from all bar Chepstow’s Welsh National meeting as another cause for their drop in quality. Though most of all I blame Northern Racing for the decline of the course.
Should have come point to pointing. A grand day out at Kingston Blount with nine well filled races (eleven if you count to very competitve pony races) and a decent crowd. There were plenty of meetings to choose from and more tomorrow.
northern racing have wrecked chepstow,i only live 10 miles away and used to go once a month but never go near the place now.
they used to have a lovely run of big races:ansley cina chase,crown paints hurdle,john hughes national trial,welsh champion hurdle,diners club/rmc hunter chase finals,welsh derby,mercedes benz chase,rising stars chase,rehersal chase…..sadly all gone.
theyve also wrecked the facilities,scrapping the lovely parade ring in favour of the awful new one in front the stands with a winners enclosure you cant get close to in tatts.
at least wales now has ffos las though sadly northern racing has that too.
i note uttoxeter seems to be heading the same as well.
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