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There was around £18,000 on offer today at Newbury , on perfect jumping ground , at one of the fairest tracks that we have.
The result is a walkover !
Is the progamme flawed ?. Or is it something that I am missing ?Unbelievable BS. Josh The Boss gets paid 9k for staying in the stable only two days after he lost a match himself…..And I still don’t understand why you’d rather run your novice chaser in a novices’ handicap off his current hurdles mark. Two different sports, complete b*****s…..
Perhaps some of them need to be scheduled a few weeks later but it’s down to the dry autumn and given the splendid summer we had it was always going to happen.
We do need these races though,Go West had a lovely start to chasing at Warwick on Tuesday as opposed to being forced into a handicap.
Yes the field sizes are small and still would be less than 8 if we had rain but there is always sand pit handicaps for the those that must have a bet.Its one of the very most depressing aspects of the state of racing at the moment. I know the ground is a contributing factor, but there’s only 4 entered in a the very prestigious £40’000 added Novice chase at Exeter today.
An improvement on last years walkover, granted, but still pretty poor.
Ground is good, and there is lots of rain forecast before racing so it will end up a lot softer.
I always come back to Hendo, and i feel bad, but i am a Hendo fanboy so i am always looking to see what he has entered up. Answer is always the same, nothing. Last year he had this mighty platoon of novice chasers on his hands according to his stable tour, this year the same and yet he can never find a novice chase for them. Before you know it, he has ran out of time to get races into them and its back to handicap hurdling, if your lucky.
I think that Run And Skip (what a fine horse he was!) has hit the nail on the head: trainers have been unable to school their novices, given the dry summer, and it’s now manifesting in small fields.
As we all know, no trainer would ever school in public…
Is global warming the actual real biggest threat to Jumps racing? it seems to be a yearly thing now that we head into these months dry and it can sometimes still be causing issues right into xmas and new year schedule.
Would have thought some of the summer jumpers would take advantage of these type of conditions…you know good ground that is seemingly a welfare issue at the big festivals.
No doubt when the ground turns soft the old peddled out excuse of ‘will be better on better ground’ or ‘we will wait for better ground’ will make itself known. A lot of these big training yards all have some kind of AW gallops and moveable hurdles/fences so saying schooling is not possible because the turf gallops are all too quick seems a little disingenuous of an excuse to hide behind.
Granted if the ground is firm then obviously that is a no-no but do they only ever school their horses when the gallops are soft (which surely makes the job harder with more effort needed) because I would have thought schooling on good ground would be beneficial for a horses technique as things would be happening much quick when they approach an obstacle for which they would need to adapt accordingly.
If drier Autumns as a result of global warming are going to be the new normal going forward then surely it makes sense for trainers to adapt their gallops to where they can still school their horses even if the turf gallops are too firm to use and then they might be better placed to enter horses for these type of races.
As they say the definition on insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Couldnt agree more LD73, trainers largely seem a pretty unadadaptive lot and sometimes just plain stubborn.
£15,000 on offer at Sandown on Saturday. 2 runners only !
Then trainers bleat about no opportunities.
Why force novices to run in handicaps when there is no need ?The answer to the question posed by the thread title is, the same as always happens when we have a long, dry autumn.
As an example, detail from my 1990/91 form book. Wincanton, then on a Thursday Nov 8th, official going Firm. Badger Beer Chase, £12k to the winner, two runners. Silver Buck Chase £6.6k to the winner, two runners.
Following day, Cheltenham, going good to firm. The 3M novice chase, 3 runners – 3M hcp chase, sponsored by my then employer, four runners.
Day two of that meeting was better, but still only three runners in the 2M novice chase. The Mackeson was won by Multum In Parvo, who turned out again a week later at Ascot, again on good to firm, in a field of five for the £21k to the winner H + T Walker Gold Cup. He was well beaten, arrived home lame and never recovered.
It was still good to firm at Ascot for the SGB meeting that year, before the rain finally arrived in the south. This was all quite common over a period of several years in the late 80’s, early 90’s.
For trainers the equation is simple. The owner spends a six figure sum on a horse that won an Irish point or bumper on soft ground. If you decide to take a chance, because it’ll be a small field and good prize money despite the fast ground, and the horse is lame next day, who do you think will be training his next purchase?
I’m sure you’re right about climate change and a very dry spell, apracing. But, there was a different racehorse population back then (1990s) compared to nowadays. I still can’t believe that there aren’t more horses other than Josh The Boss in the entire country that could have ran in two Novices’ Chases from last week. Just considering the prize money and the fact that there were still plenty of runners in the remaining races on those racecards.
Autumn thus far has actually seen roughly average rainfall, with western parts being wetter than average in September
The problem being that groundwater is very low following an unusually dry Spring and Summer
Those interested in monitoring monthly weather stats can do so here:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-actual-and-anomaly-maps
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