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Can anyone explain to me the logic of effectively having 2 Champion Hurdle trials on the same day. On Saturday we have the Contenders Hurdle at Sandown, and the Welsh Champion Hurdle at Ffos Las. Both are nice races but are effectively competing for the same runners.
This beggars belief to me , and does not surprise me one jot that races get re-opened.
Perhaps I am missing something ?Does seem strange as the conditions are so similar although of course the Welsh race is substantially more valuable – 45,000 pounds as opposed to 16,000 pounds.
The Sandown race should be a stiffer test – 1/2 furlong more and up the hill but not really that much different.
Not surprisingly 4 of the horses have both options and I guess it will allow Peddlars Cross and Binocular to win again on route to the climax at Cheltenham (although Donald has Peddlars Cross in at Sandown as well sensible chap that he is given the vagaries of the weather).
I agree with you Coggy, it is totally race planning
gone mad.I don’t know where the race from Ffos Las has come from, in previous years it was Doncaster who raced on this day staging a valuable 2 mile chase and a 4-mile marathon, but both these races have disappeared and been replaced by another champion hurdle trial, bizarre.
Why is there a Champion Hurdle trial & the Welsh Champion Hurdle on the same day?
Because the whole world doesn’t revolve around ******* Cheltenham, that’s why.
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What else were Ffos Las and Sandown supposed to do? Both races are obviously worthy of a place on a Saturday card and, whether run on the same day or two weeks apart, would still be competing for the same horses.
They either got them in now or not all, with the Kingwell less than a fortnight away.
It may interest those who overlooked it last year that Ffos Las had planned to run the revived Welsh Champion Hurdle on Saturday, January 9th, before the weather intervened.
In so doing, they were going to exploit the (comparatively uncommon) scenario whereby there were five entire weekends of racing completely clear of public / Bank Holidays. New Year’s Day 2010 had fallen on a Friday, ditto Christmas Day 2009, and if I remember correctly the Bank Holiday "lost" when Boxing Day fell on Saturday had been compensated for with another day off on Monday 28th.
Saturday 16th endured as Lanzarote and Classic Chase day, Saturday 23rd as Peter Marsh and Victor Chandler day, and Saturday 30th as Argento and Skybet Chase day. That, however, left the 2nd and 9th as two Saturdays with only one really big meeting – Sandown’s Tolworth day – between them. Sandown went for the 2nd, whilst Ffos Las, along with Sedgefield, bid for a slot on the 9th and got one, only for the big freeze to intervene in all three instances.
The point of rattling on at such length? Essentially to posit the likelihood of Ffos Las regarding the Welsh Champion Hurdle as being a movable feast. "Movable", you can probably interpret here as meaning, "to whenever any Channel 4 coverage could be guaranteed"; and certainly Channel 4 had designs on showing more than just the Welsh Champion Hurdle from the course last year.
The next time the planets align to contrive a January timetable such as 2010’s, I’d not be in the least surprised if Ffos Las bid for an early January slot again, whereupon the scheduling argument in the original post here will once again become redundant(ish).
In the meantime, I wonder if there is any mileage in someone digging out the old Chaseform annuals to see when the likes of the City Trial Hurdle used to take place – I’ve half got this nagging idea Nottingham often used to schedule that nearly on top of another Champion Hurdle trial (the Kingwell, perhaps?), but the years of memory loss since then have had their say, alas. Nurse, the screens!
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.
GC,
Nottingham used to run their trial on the Saturday in mid February also then ocupied by the Eider Chase and the Fairlawne Chase at Windsor, and one week after the big Newbury meeting.
The Kingwell in those days was run on the following Thursday, immediately prior to a two day Kempton meeting that included the Rendlesham Hurdle as well all the races currently run on Racing Post Chase day.
Like you I suspect the clash this year is a combination of cock-up and TV/sponsor demands on Ffos Llas. It could easily be resolved by moving the Sandown race to their January meeting if Ffos Llas are going to remain on this date. Although based on recent runnings, the removal of the Sandown race from the program would be no great loss, and the drop in prize money this year suggests they wouldn’t be too bothered if it disappeared.
AP
Argento and Skybet Chase day
Hope you’ll forgive a small correction to your otherwise exemplary dissection of January’s racing calendar GC…
… it’s Cotswold and Yorkshire day
yawn
… it’s Cotswold and Yorkshire day
Of course it is, to anyone with even the merest trace of a soul. I conclude I’m officially dead inside…
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.
One on a RH track, one LH
One over 2m1/2f, one over 2m
One carries different penalty structuresTwo totally different races when you end up reviewing the form.
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