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As feared, the first race at Huntingdon ended up being a walk over with Pentland Hills only having to canter over the line to collect the winning prize money (although RTV’s Jess Phillips seemed to think he was going to have a schooling session).
Maybe I am missing something obvious here but if that counts as a win over fences, would it affect his novice status if he ended the season with no other wins? If so, it seems a bit unfair.
I was looking at my 1980/81 NH formbook last night.
Firm, even Hard, ground at places like Devon & (as was) Exeter, Newton Abbot, Hereford, Market Rasen etc in the summer, yet double-digit fields, including in novice chases.
Fast forward to 2022 and they’re abandoning summer and autumn meetings on ground they would have probably have happily raced on with those kind of numbers 40 years ago and here’s a meeting at the end of October with 29 declared and one out already leaving a walkover.
This obsession with inbreeding to the fourth and even third remove for precocity and speed is producing horses so fragile a Novice Chase on Good ground on the eve of Hallow’een can’t even muster a match.
PS: If connections of the walkover winner are worried about him losing his novice status, they should have withdrawn too, leaving a void race and saving on prize-money.
PPS: “RTV’s Jess Phillips seemed to think he was going to have a schooling session” – that’s just embarrassing.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Wincanton has had two meetings abandoned. I think Taunton has as well.
Is there any point allocating fixtures to the West Country tracks at this time of year if the authorities are determined to never race on firm ground?
No point whatsoever.
Fingers crossed for Wincanton this coming Saturday.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Re whether a walkover affects novice status, I’ve had a look at the BHA’s Rules of Racing site. There is mention of how walkovers are excluded from things such as penalty calculations, but I couldn’t find any clear mention of their being excluded when determining novice status. Am surprised by this as I would have thought they should be excluded.
A bird in the hand etc. – A bit of a no brainer.
Regards Jess Phillips comments, the lack of basic knowledge of some of the people put in front of a camera is appalling.
Mention of walkovers reminds me of the greatest performance ever in any such race, that of the mighty Burrough Hill Lad in the 1985 Gainsborough Chase at Sandown. He almost refused to leave the paddock that day.
I think if you’re copping for 17 large for a walkover you can’t really moan about the impact on your novice status.
And how can anyone believe the award of jobs in the racing media has anything to do with meritocracy whatsoever when basic knowledge of the sport is so lacking?
Doesn’t bother me – I can think of a million things I’d rather be doing than traipsing off to the likes of Huntingdon today and I watch the racing on mute.
But, RTV, ATR, ITV, whoever – employ people who at least might know as much as the average viewer, even if you can’t manage more.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"But why shouldn’t a horse complete the entire race even if it’s a walkover?
I mean when the race falls apart with other contestants in the race, you still don’t pull up. You have to complete the race. Why should it be different for a walkover?What is the point of asking a horse to do that?
It would provide zero entertainment for spectators and there is always a finite risk of injury.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Should jump the last fence/hurdle at least.
Was out for the day so never watched any of the racing but just out of curiosity, I had a look at the race times for Huntingdon based off the withdrawn horse’s connections comments of:
“I can’t tell you how quick it was, it scared the hell out of me,” said Gordon. “When the horse came into the paddock Tom [Cannon], who had run around the track earlier, just said it was very, very quick down the back and we were doing the wrong thing. If the clerk had called it good to firm, like they should, we would never have made the journey, it would have been a walkover and would have been done and dusted”.
So the fastest race was ‘only’ 7.20s outside standard and the slowest time was 22.40s slower – now I know that is not always the best/accurate indicator of ground conditions but was the official going of ‘good (watered)’ an apt description or was it nearer to good to firm?
Re whether loss of novice status for winning a walk over is fair, I think it depends on what you think the purpose of novice status is. If you believe it’s to provide a financial advantage to connections by giving them the opportunity to run in races with restricted opposition, then losing it following a walk over seems fair enough. If you think it’s also to provide additional opportunities to inexperienced horses who haven’t yet shown the ability to win over fences, then it seems harsh on the horse. I take the latter view.
I acknowledge it’s all somewhat inconsistent though as some “novices” end up being vastly experienced. And of course some people wish to do away with novice status entirely, which is a whole other discussion…
I can’t see the point in asking the horse to jump some or all of the fences in the event of a walk over.
If the walk over is known at the time of declarations, I’m not even convinced there’s a need to ask connections to make the costly and environmentally harmful journey to the course simply for the horse to trot past the post. I don’t know if this requirement exists to prevent skulduggery of some kind, but it strikes me that it would be a difficult scenario to exploit.
“Should jump the last fence/hurdle at least.”
I just don’t get why.
Say a horse fell and sustained a fatal injury – its bad enough when it happens in an actual race, but in the course of a walkover?
The antis would have a field day.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Jess Phillips is OK as a presenter in the studio but not so good as a presenter at the track.
She is involved with Thurloe Thoroughbreds, which is presumably how she got her foot in the door with RTV.
Never heard of her tbh – but then I don’t subscribe to RacingTV (or any pay channel) and I watch racing muted on betting apps, so what do I expect?
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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