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I am not convinced a week’s break is a good idea but maybe there could be the occasional blank day, as in Ireland?
Of course, if racing did stop for a week, it is a certainty the weather would be good and then it would freeze as soon as it was due to return!
Give racing fans time to digest the Christmas action and watch some riveting action in Europe, nope don’t need either. One doesn’t interest me the other interests me even less. Who exactly is this weeks break aimed at?
The more I know the less I understand.
Betting on racing (which funds much of the sport) is already down. Taking a week off and having no betting doesn’t seem sensible.
But it won’t stop Playle being asked onto “Luck On Sunday” in future and treated as an expert guest.
Its a winter sport FFS – inclement weather is all part and parcel of that and if meetings get abandoned (like football matches often do) then so be it.
Its not like having no racing for a week automatically means a rest for stable staff as horses still need to be looked after even when they are not being prepared to go racing. Time to give flu jabs to horses are factored in by trainers but its not like they all do it at the same time so a week off is not going to make that process fundamentally change.
Daft idea and surely they are far more pressing stories that she could have written about during this quieter racing week.
It’s worth thinking about it. As far as I know the premium French NH tracks like Auteuil, Compiegne and Fontainebleau take a three month winter break starting from late November/early December (Auteuil) until late February/early March.
Though such a long break would be impossible in GB. It would result in Cheltenham being put back for maybe a month or so….
We already have a three day break – 23rd-25th December, which is a good thing.
Week long breaks are now programmed into the flat and N.H. programme.
I would let the weather decide.
Most of us think there are far too many fixtures, but the the BHA still insist on arranging additional meetings (3 so far this year) to compensate for abandonments.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
A longer winter break is not necessary, especially for Jumps racing at a time of year that is perfect for it (frosts aside!).
The weather could easily be fine during the break and freezing the next week, leading to a prolonged spell without any action. If racing adopted this idea, it would potentially be shooting itself in the foot.
A weeks long break from the 2nd to the 9th for instance wouldn’t be a bad idea. It wouldn’t prevent meetings from being lost to bad weather but it’s a sure bet that the weather in the uk at that time of year is often at its worse or getting close to.
Anything that brings about an overall reduction in the amount of utter crap which turns out at these sort of meetings has to be a good thing overall. But that wouldn’t be the case. The BHA would simply reallocate it all to the 3rd week in January and beyond.
So there could be benefits to this if the doughnuts in charge at the BHA actually had the brains they were born with.
Could have had a couple of longer breaks this Christmas & New year period. Say racing finished on Saturday 20 Dec and then returned Boxing Day. After Saturdays meetings which were far from top class these also could have been shelved. After the NYD meetings a break could have been taken say up to today with racing returning tomorrow. Again nearly a week off.
Good luck timing it. Here in the Westcountry, I was comfortably sat outside at lunchtime in the sun having a couple of pints just after Christmas. Just under a week later it was freezing and nearby Exeter had to abandon. That could easily be the other way around next year. Never going to work.
“After Saturdays meetings which were far from top class these also could have been shelved.”
That first Saturday of the year is very poor, even more so now the Grade 1 Novice Hurdle has been moved from Sandown to Aintree on Boxing Day.
Personally I would move the Challow Hurdle card at Newbury to the Saturday. I know plenty of people are off work at Christmas but that meeting seemed a bit lost on the Monday. It tends to get moved around anyway depending how the calendar falls.
Why not just cancel racing for the three months between the Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox; after all it’s likely that there’ll be a bit of frost and maybe even some snow in the period
Better safe than sorry
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