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Hello again chums,
Would anyone be willing and able to list the stabling capacities of all jumps tracks on this thread, or alternatively point me in the direction of a list of them somewhere online, please?
Cheers in advance,
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.
This is the most up to date list and the numbers do often fluctuate for one reason or another. The Newmarket figure is a bit of an anomaly as trainers that pay Newmarket Heath tax do not have to use the racecourse stables (hence the much higher total field sizes at an average Newmarket meeting than the stabling figure suggests). The Musselburgh figure is a temporary one due to the ongoing redevelopment of the racecourse stables.
Aintree 162
Ascot 175
Ayr 175
Bangor-on-Dee 82
Bath 120
Beverley 112
Brighton 103
Carlisle 98
Cartmel 75
Catterick Bridge 116
Cheltenham 203
Chepstow 106
Chester 138
Doncaster 150
Epsom Downs 108
Exeter 90
Fakenham 70
Folkestone 93
Fontwell Park 90
Goodwood 130
Hamilton Park 102
Haydock Park 124
Hereford 105
Hexham 93
Huntingdon 100
Kelso 94
Kempton Park 119
Leicester 108
Lingfield Park 97
Ludlow 100
Market Rasen 87
Musselburgh 92
Newbury 126
Newcastle 135
*Newmarket 100
Newton Abbot 80
Nottingham 124
Perth 98
Plumpton 76
Pontefract 114
Redcar 144
Ripon 103
Salisbury 114
Sandown Park 110
Sedgefield 116
Southwell 73
Stratford-on-Avon 89
Taunton 90
Thirsk 110
Towcester 101
Uttoxeter 104
Warwick 117
Wetherby 91
Wincanton 94
Windsor 118
Wolverhampton 103
Worcester 100
Yarmouth 130
York 177Didn’t find it where I thought I might and can now see HJ has posted the details.
That said, I did have a quick look at the RaceCourse Association website and it is actually very good in case anyone wants to have a look…
Just the ticket, HJ!
I can envisage putting these to some good use in the coming months, and one trend I can see has already emerged.
Bangor had 53 declared runners today set against a stabling capacity of 82. The hunters’ chase could have featured a maximum field free of any BHA-enforced balloting, therefore, but only six lined up.
Huntingdon yesterday filled 91 out of 100 stables. The hunters’ chase was again not subject to balloting-out, but only mustered 10 runners (reduced to nine when Bay Island abstained).
Ludlow on Wednesday filled 81 out of 100 stables, but only five lined up for the hunters’ chase.
Fontwell last Sunday filled 69 out of 90 stables, but again only five contested the hunter.
So, that’s four hunters’ chases run so far this winter, all of which had carte blanche to feature 14, 15, maybe 16 runners the way the balloting panned out (i.e. none was needed), but none of which did.
Notwithstanding the presence of professionally-trained animals contesting – and indeed winning – all of those races, there was still some prizemoney going spare for the amateurs behind the Nicholls / Hobbs / Williams / O’Neill inmates; and the fact that three of the races were over sub-3m trips should have attracted more animals for whom the regular (same) point-to-pointing trip is usually a bit too far.
Once the balloting out starts to kick in (and it will at some stage), the amateur fraternity has to look at this last week’s hunters’ chase action as constituting a succession of chances to run under Rules (and make a few bob) gone begging.
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.
Do Hunter Chase runners have to use racecourse stables though? I had a feeling they ran off their boxes…
Hunter Chasers have to use the racecourse stables like anyone else Lekha. The new rule that everyone is grumbling about is the fact that if the total number of runners declared for a meeting exceeds the number of available stables it is the Hunter Chase that suffers in the fact that the number of runners in that race will get reduced to nine (?) if necessary before any other safety factors are taken into account.
A very crude example – you have a meeting where there are six races with 20 declared overnight runners in each race (120 runners) but the stabling capacity is just 100. Eleven of the twenty runners in the Hunter Chase would therefore automatically be ballotted out before they even start thinking about eliminating runners from the other races.
Yes thank you HJ, I do understand how ballotting out works.
There was a time however when Hunter Chasers didn’t use the racecourse stables, it was at Kelso I think, and I was wondering if that was still the case or if it was just that one time and whether that rule applied across the board…but I stand corrected.
Apologies Lekha, I hope the tone of my post didn’t come across as patronising as it certainly wasn’t meant to read that way. The speil about the balloting out procedure was for the wider audience on here in case people weren’t aware how it worked.
In the past I’m pretty sure that, as you say, Hunters didn’t have to use the racecourse stables, but the rules and regulations are so stringent these days that everyone has to be singing from the same hymn sheet, whether they like it or not.
Hunter chasers have to be stabled as well nowadays, I believe – I’m not sure the matter of balloting would be an issue otherwise.
I suppose there’d also be the issue of what precedent it would set nowadays, i.e. trainers of prospective runners in other races might argue they should be allowed to circumvent the balloting-out if they pledge beforehand to run their animals out of their boxes. That could all become quite tricky to manage or police pretty quickly.
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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