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According to the Racing Post Warwick are scrapping flat racing as from next year.
What with Newcastle planning to go to the all weather and this, that’s two turf courses gone in one year.
All weather Derby at Epsom by 2025 anyone!
They have put up some decent money for fillies and mares races but hard to believe that too many people get excited about Flat racing at Warwick.
Consider the vast area of central England bordered by the M1 in the east, the M5/M6 in the west, the M62 to the north and the M4 to the south.
That now contains just one turf flat course and even that, at Pontefract, offers a compelling view of the M62 from the stands.
Still, good to see the course taking the opposite route to that chosen by Nottingham and Windsor. Would be a great shame to lose a jumping course on which I once watched a Grand National winner beat a Gold Cup winner in a novice chase.
Haven’t they had some nasty accidents on the turn in. Is this why they have made this decision?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysHaven’t they had some nasty accidents on the turn in. Is this why they have made this decision?
No the bend has been realigned already and judged safe.
Perhaps they realised that they were not losing anything from cancelling flat meetings whilst the bend was sorted out.
Many courses exist because they exist and once something or someone really questions things as to why, they close downSorry, but I simply do not understand your answer. If the course has been closed while the bend was sorted, have they had any races on it since?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysSorry, but I simply do not understand your answer. If the course has been closed while the bend was sorted, have they had any races on it since?
There was a fatality off the bend there back in May and subsequent fixtures moved to other courses whilst work was done to sort this out. They have raced there since with an all-sprint card (even though the fatality occurred in a 6f race anyway). Warwick’s next fixture on August bank holiday is also an all-sprint affair.
I think this could prove to be a shrewd move by the course. Despite living in Warwick, I haven’t been to a Flat meeting there for a couple of years – the racing is modest at best, although I’m not much of a summer racegoer anyway. I get the feeling that the course management thinks it may be throwing good money after bad regarding ongoing work for it’s Flat racing.
Jumps racing at the track is a different matter and with Stratford and Worcester both moving to summer jumping in recent years, there could well be a gap in the market for a quality small jumps venue. It needs more investment in prize money and some good race-planning, but it’s definitely do-able.
Current NH meetings are already pretty decent and I’ve always thought that the back-straight of five perfectly-spaced fences is one of the best tests of rhythm and jumping ability in the game.
It will be interesting to see whereabouts in the calendar the extra fixtures occur.
Mike
Would be a great shame to lose a jumping course on which I once watched a Grand National winner beat a Gold Cup winner in a novice chase.
Not exactly been wracking my brain or losing sleep but it irritates; so care to put me out of my misery APR?
Thought everyone would remember Party Politics slamming Garrison Savannah there Drone
Hi Drone,
I’d been reminded of that race by a pleasant hour spent swapping memories with the lad that looked after Party Politics when I visited Oaksey House in Lambourn recently.
The race, a 3m 2f novice chase, had a run of producing great horses at that time, as Party Politics beat Garrison Savannah in 1990, Rolling Ball won in 1991, Rough Quest was second in 1992 to Springaleak and Barton Bank won in 1993.
Small field disease seemed to kill it off for a few years after that, but it’s been back under various names this century and has produced a couple of NH Chase winners in Relaxation and Midnight Prayer and two Scottish National winners, Take Control and Godsmejudge. It’s also been lost to the weather several times, so it’s been a good pointer from limited runnings.
Just exhumed the race from the RP archive – the Highfield Road Novices’ Chase, 21st February 1990, £7132.50 to the winner
As Betlarge has pointed out the Chase track at Warwick is a fabulous test and more meetings is welcome news
On a similar vein, I remember West Tip turning up at 50-1 first time out in a novices hurdle there in December 1982.
Remarkably, subsequent Gold Cup winner Charter Party ran in the second division of the same race.
Mike
Thanks Betlarge, understand now.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysI read that they will use the flat track to enable them to have a wider jumps track,hope that doesn’t result in a switch to portible fences like they did at wincanton!
Agreed; though hopefully with any luck it’ll simply mean that they have two possible lines to use for hurdle and bumper races. As a track which can still draw high-teen field sizes for plenty of its handicap hurdles (one field of 19 either this year or last, IIRC), that’s where I reckon the greater imperative lies.
In terms of additional jumps meetings held there, I’d personally love to see a permanent return of the early-May Saturday evening fixture that was discontinued after the 2005 renewal, though it might be asking a bit much for a simultaneous resurrection of the class 2 2m conditions chase that Cenkos used to farm at that fixture as well.
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.
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