mister mcgoldrick, bangor & voided race.

​Mister McGoldrick, named after the heart surgeon who helped save his owner’s life, and won at long odds at the Cheltenham Festival, died this summer aged 27. He was very much a northern equine hero, trained for most of his career by Sue Smith, and as ‘a mark of respect to him’ and to remind their patrons of all he achieved, especially as an ambassador for the ‘New Beginnings’ equine charity, Wetherby have named a new bar in his honour, ‘McGoldrick’s’. This is exactly what I like to see – horses being respected, even when they have passed from our lives. I hope anyone attending a meeting at Wetherby will patronise ‘McGoldrick’s’ and raise a glass in memory of the old horse.

The ground at Bangor on Wednesday is described as soft, good-to-soft in places. No doubt there will be a healthy number of runners in each race. Trainers have been salivating in wait of ground described as ‘soft’ for many weeks and like an oasis in a desert they have their wish.
Now, and here I must criticise the B.H.A. Not for the prevailing weather but for failing to be proactive and asking Bangor to shoehorn a novice chase open to geldings into their programme of races. Not just as a kindness to Nicky Henderson who will soon be seen on a racecourse donning a wig, given the amount of hair-pulling he has indulged in lately. Which is a shame as he must be the only male trainer in the country with a more flourishing head of hair than his stable jockey.
Given the long-term weather forecast last week, with no appreciable amount of rain on the charts, the B.H.A. could have approached Bangor, inquired about the state of the ground and upon hearing the word ‘soft’ suggested the inclusion of a novice chase over 2-mile 4. If a whole meeting can be organised overnight when frost or snow knocks out meeting after meeting, inserting one race into a meeting should be easy-peasy. All that was required was foresight, something those working at the B.H.A. sadly lack.

The Chelmsford voided race was yet another example of what can go wrong will eventually go wrong. I believe it is has never happened before on a British racecourse, though as a tractor was central to the close-to-catastrophe, someone might have posed the question ‘what do we do if the stalls cannot be removed from the track due to a mechanical issue?’
Of course, when would be the appropriate moment to sound the alarm if the stalls remained on the track during a race? There needs to be a protocol in place. The race could be at the halfway point before the stalls are removed. I am sure the alarm should be sounded once the horses reach the halfway point, not before. And that is what I believe should be the protocol. The starter should be able to activate a siren situated on the back straight, accompanied by flashing red lights, to warn the jockeys that they must ease-up as there is an obstruction on the racecourse. In fact, the starter could void a race in this way for any circumstance that might lead to catastrophe – looses horses proceeding in the wrong direction, as one example.
I hope the inquiry does not seek to apportion blame. This was a one-in-a-thousand incident and all is required is for a protocol to be put in place should something similar happen in the future. On this occasion, the starter should be praised for running down the course with a flag to warn the jockeys they needed to pull-up. It was his actions that saved the day every bit as much as the skill of the jockeys.