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I was at Lingfield this afternoon and the racecard and the constant propaganda barrage left me in no doubt the three day “Winter Million” meeting is being taken seriously.
Jump cards on Friday January 21st and Sunday January 23rd (weather permitting) bracket a Saturday Flat meeting.
ARC is now dangling lots of lovely prize money for their new jump races which may not be a direct riposte to the Dublin Racing Festival but which might annoy Jockey Club Racecourses as they look a direct challenge to meetings at Cheltenham, Haydock, Wincanton, Kempton and elsewhere.
What “goodies” does Mr Cruddace’s largesse offer in terms of races?
According to the programme, the Friday jump meeting will feature:
The Winter Million Handicap Hurdle – 2 miles – £100k prize money (who needs the Lanzarote?)
The Winter Million Handicap Chase – 2 miles – £50k
The Winter Million Hurdle – 2 miles 7 furlongs – £50k
The Winter Million Novices Chase – 2 miles 7 furlongs – £50k
plus three smaller value racesSaturday’s feature on the flat is the £100k Winter Oaks (a handicap over 1 mile and a quarter)
On then to Sunday and back to the jump track which I’m sure will be fine after the pounding 48 hours earlier.
The Winter Million Chase – 2 mile 6 furlongs – £150k
The Winter Million Hurdle – 2 miles 3 and a half furlongs – £100k
The Winter Million Novices Chase – 2 miles – £50k
The Winter Million Open Standard NH Flat Race – 2 miles (on the Polytrack) – £40kI’m forced to ask – what’s the point? We already have a jumps season constipated by “quality” races which are basically Cheltenham Trials. I accept Lingfield in January on heavy ground is a world away from Cheltenham in March so perhaps I’m misreading it and ARC are trying to put on some decent money for the mudlarks who lose out in the spring on the drier ground.
For me, the biggest risk is the meeting taking place at all. The last few years have seen a succession of abandonments due to waterlogging (and that’s even before we get any snow) and I’m to be convinced, dry spell currently notwithstanding, that if and when the heavens do open, there won’t be some problems.
Given that we are constantly moaning about prize money we shouldn’t be complaining about this meeting. I believe the 2 mile novice will have better money than the Kingmaker.
Given that it’s ARC you do wonder what the catch is. It might have been better to have more handicaps and I’m fed up grumping about Lingfield running their bumpers on the all weather. But all in all I don’t have an issue.
I do share your concern about possible abandonments.
Ps, didn’t Doncaster have a short lived £100k handicap chase around January.
In a NH season way too dominated by obsessing about the Cheltenham Festival, any additional mid-season boosts are welcome.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The fact is we have plenty of “mid season” (I’m not sure how you define that in all honesty) races through January and with the trend to reschedule meetings abandoned via waterlogging and milder winters meaning fewer meetings lost to frost and snow, I simply don’t see what these Class 2 events (the aim clearly is to get them into the NH Pattern somewhere) add to the season.
I do accept they may well give an opportunity for those horses who genuinely prefer running on heavy ground to go for proper money given the bias of the season toward the spring and often drier ground means such horses don’t get a fair chance to run for big money.
Running the NH meetings on the Friday and Sunday deftly avoids clashes with the big Saturday cards at Ascot and Haydock so should ensure the top NH jockeys are present but, quite apart from the state of the course on the Sunday after the Friday, the pool of higher grade horses is such that other meetings and races will feel the presence of the new Lingfield races – the Kingmaker being one such.
Not sure if it is needed but at least Lingfield is trying to build itself up as a National Hunt track again after years of the jumping game being in the doldrums at the venue.
This money should be ploughed in to the Cheltenham Festival for a few more Mares races.
BUY THE SUN
A good few years back, there was serious talk of ending the NH races at Lingfield.
The Graded Novice Chase (over 3 miles and always won by a 50/1 chance it seemed) and the Juvenile Hurdle are both gone – one to Doncaster and one to Hereford.
All that’s left is the Surrey National, that colossus of a race.
The NH races were all going to go to Folkestone which was going to be the Arena jump track for the south east leaving the Flat turf track at Lingfield to be kept just for the summer.
We all know how that turned out.
The problem is the jump track uses the flat track and with the Derby and Oaks Trials so early in the season there’s no chance of having spring jump racing – unless they decide to move the Oaks and Derby trials to the Polytrack.
I used to enjoy going Jumps racing at Lingfield Park back in the 1980s.
They often raced on a Thursday, it was a nice train journey from central London, lovely leafy venue in those days, Open Ditch alongside the last similar to Sandown Park, often saw Dick Francis in the bar, decent seafood sandwiches and filter coffee and saw horses of the quality of Berlin who won a Novices’ Hurdle, the ground was reliably desperate and the form worked out well as long as you sided with horses proven in the conditions.
Enjoying a resurgence in fixtures now, but the quality is generally much lower.
I welcome the new initiative – yes, there are lots of mid-season prizes but the focus is still too much on the Cheltenham Festival and anything that might dilute that myopic focus has my support.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"If race planning is simply going to be about a succession of racecourse owners throwing money at a few races, what’s the point? Raising prize money at all levels (including Class 6 Bumpers and Hunter Chases) would be a much better use of Cruddace’s cash than the shameless self-promotion of a few races which (if they take place at all) are likely to be run in a bog (which is fine – plenty of horses will enjoy those conditions).
If programme planning means anything, it has to be about ensuring we have the right races at the right courses at the right stage of the season. It may be a midwinter mud-bath in East Surrey will appeal to some – there won’t be any Cheltenham clues I suppose. I’d simply like the prize money at the bottom improved.
At Hereford on Wednesday, the Class 5 Novices’ Handicap Chase had a first prize of £2,505 while the Bumper on the same card had a first prize of £1,906. Doubling those would be better than putting up big pots for races for the smaller population at the top end.
Unless Jeremy Corbyn gets appointed CEO of ARC, I think you’re unlikely to see racing at ARC tracks funded from the bottom upwards.
Any additional prize-money for any additional events is far better than nothing and is to be welcomed in my view.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Agree with the people saying that any initiative like this is to be welcomed. And if the races are not framed as Cheltenham trials all the better. I just hope they get some decent field sizes.
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