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Doesn’t Cheltenham have a much stiffer downhill fence that has been responsible for lots of injuries and fatalities?
It has – that was the aforementioned penultimate fence on the Old Course. The modifications made to it between the Open meeting and the Festival appeared to meet with approval, and certainly claimed no further victims at the Festival itself, though clearly it would be foolish to declare them an unreserved success after so few races over it so far.
If you got the calibre of horses that run at Cheltenham to run at Sedgefield you probably would never have a fatality because the fences are so easy to jump
That’s not necessarily true – speed kills, after all, and better horses taking these fences a good few miles an hour quicker than your common or garden 85-rated chaser may be more at risk from speed-induced injuries than inferior technique should a fall occur.
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 love Sedgefield, the racing not the people who run it sadly, with their endless gimmicks. Yes the horses are low quality, but sadly not everyone has a horse worthy of running at Cheltenham festival so there has to be somewhere to send them. and I think that some of the comments are very insulting to the people who enjoy watching the racing from there and the trainers, owners and jockeys who run horses, these people need to make a living. It (along with Catterick) are my local tracks and I cant afford to travel much further, and pay for entry, so im grateful for what I get.
A lot of the horses who run there are local favourites and the crowd like to see them turn out week after week, Fatehalkhair & Mighty Fine are 2 who spring to mind. Sadly I dont visit as often as i’d like as the entry fee to watch poor quality is a turn off, one has to be grateful to the Porters or Mr Wade for the occaisional freebie!!! I am also more of a fair weather racegoer these days so I look forward to the summer evenings, and there is no wonder why the management prefer these meetings to the winter days, the place is packed to the rafters! with a totally different cliantel than you’d expect from normal racemeetings.
The course has been doing an awful lot to discover why ther has been a high fatality rate in the last few years, I think its just a sad fact of jump racing and the risks that happen, Totally Scottish for example was a tragic accident when a horse landed on top of him, how can the course be blamed for that? They are willing to put in changes to rectify whatever is going wrong.
Maybe if the place was sold for building on Mr Wade might invest some of his millions and get rid of those Northern Racing monkeys!! Theres no chance of that happpening however with the course as popular as it is.
One thing I would add is i wish they’d get rid of their shitty awful free racecards. I’d rather pay a little less to get in and pay 2 quid for a decent one!!!
I stand by my earlier post. Both statements, in different paragraphs are a true and accurate representation of my opinion.
When a new poster comes on TRF and uses a commercial URL in their byline, I consider this to spam. Everyone is entitled to post their opinion but there is simply no need to include a link the their commercial horse racing site. It is easy and inexpensive to advertise on TRF and I don’t have any problem with with a syndicate doing the right thing and paying for exposure here.
Sedgefield is a gaff track for low grade horses and any owner/trainer who runs a good horse at the place in my opinion stupid.
If everyone that doesn’t share your view is "stupid", you must despair of the world Wallace!
I made a reasonable argument as to the merits of the track but you simply retort that it is a "gaff track for low grade horses". Well, three horses that have run there in the last couple of months that I would love to own are Mr Jack Danniells (120 rated hurdler), Wee Forbees (sold for £85K in May) & Surface to Air (130+rated chaser). None are anywhere near "low grade" and surely trainers Ferdy Murphy, Howard Johnson and Chris Bealby cannot all be "stupid".
As regards "spam" , there are plenty of web addresses included on posts on here…and you don’t have to click on them.
Surface to Air (130+rated chaser)
…who, to my mind, looks as lively a prospect for the Summer National as anything we’ve seen in the last few weeks, along with fellow recent Sedgefield winner Snoopy Loopy.
Clemax okay after his Perth spin, btw?
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.
[quote="graysonscolumn
Clemax okay after his Perth spin, btw?
gc
Yes he is sound thank you. He wasn’t helped by the downpour there. The Summer National is a possible target for him if it came up fast ground….though he was dropped 4lb by handicapper today so his 112 mark will leave him borderline to get in & certainly out of the handicap.
On the summer jumping going front I noticed yesterday’s going at
Newton Abbot was G/F ( firm in places) from a position of being
heavy (waterlogged in places a week earlier). I know going conditions
can be hard to anticipate but this seens a bit careless to me.The RP reported conditions as VERY MUCH on the fast side of good
– sounded like a euphemism for firm to me.
The chase in which Ashby Jo was pulled up ( fatal injury) had a couple of
others lame or dismounted.I`ve missed some of the discussion but would firm be deemed
unraceable?Anyone remeber the Taunton going being descibed as ‘Hard’?
I`ve missed some of the discussion but would firm be deemed
unraceable?There is not a hard and fast rule (no pun intended) which automatically forbids officially firm ground from being offered as a summer jumping surface (hard yes, firm no). However, I think I’m right in saying it was always the stated intention in the early days of summer jumping – whether carried out or not, and whether maintained to the present day or not – that a presiding course inspector could pull the plug on a meeting with officially firm going if that firm was not regarded as safe firm.
Anyone remember the Taunton going being descibed as ‘Hard’?
God yes. Hexham, Exeter and Perth, too, and all in the days before summer jumping at that.
Whatever the merits or otherwise on summer jumping in some people’s eyes, only the most dogmatic of them would claim that the sub-30 runner, hard ground cards of Augusts and Septembers past were in any way a better proposition or spectacle (I’ve just had a look at one such in the Post archive from Exeter, 18/9/91. Grim stuff).
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)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.
There is no problem with anyone displaying a commercial URL in their signature. This has long been allowed. If I feel it is being abused then it will be reviewed on an individual or collective basis.
Wallace’s comments are his opinion and he is free to express them on the forum, within reason, and should not be subjected to personal insults as a result which is why the comments from Underscore have been deleted. As ever debates must stop short of personal scomments/jibes.
So far as Dprp’s posts – nothing wrong whatsoever, perfectly in context of the thread and informative.
Cormack his opinion was that an owner must be stupid for running his horse at Sedgefield…..therefore he is actually calling me stupid as I’m a part owner of Delray Beach who has ran at Sedgefield. That is a personal attack….but it would appear that some members are allowed the freedom to make such idiotic statements.
One rule for one etc…
Reducing the field size is the only thing the course can do that is free, anything that might actually make a difference would cost a few bob and is therefore not on the agenda.
Reducing the field size won’t make any difference what so ever, as any sane person knows.
A lot of the horses who run there are local favourites and the crowd like to see them turn out week after week, Fatehalkhair & Mighty Fine are 2 who spring to mind.
Mighty fine passed away good few months back, not too sure if you knew. Loved him too a real true trier. He won his last race then collapsed with heart attack.
I like the horses that run at Sedgefield too, however the course and facilities itself leave much to the imagination, well for the price you have to pay anyway! Have no idea about the safety on the track itself but have to admit most times i went horses did die. All pretty much spread about the course, not so much in one area. Don’t know why reducing the field limit would make difference
i will make it easy for Corm. if you wont play a level playing field i wont post again.
Sad to report, another horse perished at the Durham venue yesterday afternoon. Imp’s Way, a stalwart of the Northern hunters’ chase scene for owner-trainer Tessa Corrigan-Clark for many years, had been sent to Clive Mulhall to try to make a low mark count in the concluding handicap chase, but she smashed a leg on the flat at the top of the back straight with the inevitable consequences.
The point could be made, of couse, that this is another fatality at the track not to have been caused by jumping or running downhill (the injury occured only around halfway into the first circuit), but my thoughts are rather more with connections than on anything else at present.
Tessa Corrigan-Clark is more or less the last recognised trainer still operating out of Scarborough, my home town for five years, and the sight of Tessa (daughter of the town’s foremost arcade proprietor) exercising Imp’s Way on the A170 to and from friend and former trainer Roy Robinson’s yard was a familiar and endearing sight to many in the town. She’ll be in absolute bits about this.
Rest easy, Imp’s Way.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)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.
Jeremy, what is the racing surface like there, does it get rough through the course not recovering from the hammering it gets through the winter months?
I can picture rough ground drying out and becoming quite nasty.
Colin
It would be a worthwhile exercise if the BHA investigated and compared the state of the ‘summer ground’ at those tracks that race round the calendar, such as Sedgefield, with that at Newton Abbot, Perth, Stratford and Worcester who have a winter close season.
IIRC the incessant racing at Fontwell and Uttoxeter has caused going/ground problems on occasions.
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