- This topic has 32 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 3 months ago by
.
- Posts
overall I just sense a lack of direction at the track and a general feeling that they current management aren’t really that keen on jumping outside of the Hennessey and Tote Gold Trophy meetings. Although I’m sure they would deny such a suggestion!
Almost certainly they would deny it!
I’ve just had another thought – this was the meeting which for years and years used to feature the Phillip Cornes "Saddle of Gold", the Listed final of a 3m novices’ hurdle series won in the past by the likes of Bucko, Miinnehoma and Pertemps Networks before being discontinued in the early 1990s.
A 3m novices’ hurdle now features at the Festival, of course. Even if a series cannot be reintroduced, someone is nevertheless really missing a trick in not reinstating a decent-endowed 3m contest at this Newbury meeting, with a bonus offered to any horse that wins (or wins or places) in that en route to winning the Albert Bartlet 13 days later.
It’s a centrepiece to this otherwise fading Newbury fixture just begging to be implemented.
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.
There was hardly anyone there yesterday!
There is rarely a great crowd at Newbury on any Friday – it’s just not the type of track that attracts a big crowd on Fridays, mainly as a lot of the clientele come from the City or are office workers.
Added to that Newbury is a large track that can accomodate a fair few people and can look far emptier than it really is.
To hold jumps cards less than an hour apart, especially on a Saturday (Newbury & Kempton) is sheer lunacy and I cannot understand why either track would feel the need to compete, not least of a weekend.
All that aside, Newbury as a track is superb and I would always run a horse there. It is exceptionally fair with a lovely galloping course and one at which you would willingly run your animals, especially young ones.
The ground is not an issue any more IMO, they improved the drainage a fair few years ago and it is far better than it was. Most trainers love Newbury as a course for the reasons I have outlined and I cannot see it being not popular because of old, out-dated opinions of the ground there. It is as immensely popular track with trainers.
Would two three-mile races for novices that close together be that attractive?
No more or less than two tough, ultra-competitive 2m handicap hurdles in the Imperial Cup and County Hurdle, perhaps, though I gladly take the point you’re making.
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.
I disagree graysons. A grizzled two-mile handicapper would take a lot less out of himself by running twice closely together than would a baby running over three miles – particularly with one of those being a championship event.
In any case I think that the Saddle of Gold final was run during the end-of-March meeting at Newbury, but I am sure you will correct me if i am wrong.
TWW,
Saddle of Gold final was run at this meeting, but that was when there was no 3M novice hurdle at Cheltenham and runners had a decent break before the Grade 1 race at Aintree. It certainly wouldn’t work now as there’s no way Newbury could match the money on offer at Cheltenham, let alone the prestige.
What they could add, if the money was available, is a valuable 3M handicap hurdle – if you aren’t qualified for the pertemps final, there’s no where for 3M handicappers to go before Aintree. But it’s difficult to see any other gaps in the program that would attract top class horses.
AP
If accepting TWW’s point on the Albert Bartlett coming too soon, wouldn’t a Newbury 3m novice / Aintree Sefton Hurdle bonus tie-in work instead? That could very well have formed the last third or half of a mapped-out season for something like Tazbar, or any other similarly good animal for whom Cheltenham was never on the agenda.
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.
What about upping the prize of the veterens 3m2f chase and having a bonus for going on to win the National.
A 2m4f juvenile hurdle?
Value Is EverythingNot sure what everyone expects just before the festival!
Good to see Trouble at Bay do so well though… franks the form of SE and Osana for CH (based on the Greatwood) – by the way, I’m kidding!
In the Racing Post on the course layout they have a distance of 3m6f so why not have a Berkshire National and maybe have handicap hurdle over 3m2f.
And as their is no all weather that day maybe a jump v flat jockeys hurdle
I wouldn’t be too keen on a Berkshire National or similar at that meeting, to be honest, for fear of it being to the detriment of the Eider, Grimthorpe Chase and Red Sqaure Vodka Gold Cup.
Mind you, with the removal a decade or so ago of Newbury’s October jumps fixture-and-a-half, their jumps programme is crammed into just four months now, so I’m not sure when would be a good time for the course to host a marathon contest.
I’m also furiously racking my brains trying to think when a 3m6f event was last held there. I can’t remember there having been one in my racing lifetime!
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.
What about upping the prize of the veterens 3m2f chase and having a bonus for going on to win the National.
A 2m4f juvenile hurdle?
Both decent shouts. I could think of a few horses I saw in juveniles last summer that were already too stout – or just damned slow – for the minimum trip over hurdles.
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.
GC,
Dec 31st, 1994 – the transferred Welsh National, won by Master Oats from Earth Summit over 3m 6f at Newbury.
To the best of my knowledge, not only the last race there over that distance, but also the first.
It didn’t require any course modifications – they just set off from the 2m 1f chase start and ran two circuits.
It’s a classic quiz question as Master Oats also won a Greenalls Gold Cup that was switched to Kempton, making him the only horse to have both races south of the M4. (I’ll collect my anorak on the way out ….)
AP
Ah, that’s it, AP – just required a little thinking outside the box. Many thanks!
Oh, and the very best of luck with Power Shared in a short while as well, of course…
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.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.