It is said by the B.H.A. and others that the reason the Irish authorities can be more flexible in re-scheduling fixtures that are abandoned due to the weather is because they have blank days in their race schedule. This is true, of course, but why can’t the British race program have a degree of flexibility, especially in the days after a big Saturday meeting.
For instance, just to use three recent important Saturday fixtures, and my argument here is based on the presumption that the ground conditions on the following day would have allowed racing to take place, which might not have been the case in reality. If on the Sunday after the abandoned Warwick Classic, the Clarence House and this weekend’s ‘Super Saturday’ meeting at Newbury, there was only all-weather fixtures, the dual benefit would have been a breather for jump jockeys and trainers alike, and with the contrariness of some of my ideas, a blank day for the afflicted racecourses to slot in their abandoned day’s racing. In fact, I cannot see why ‘ghost’ meetings cannot be part of the calendar, meetings to be run if abandoned on the previous day.
I am not suggesting that run-of-the-mill fixtures should be protected in this way; the sport as a whole can afford to lose such meetings as a string of abandonments lead to greater competitiveness at meetings that do survive the foul weather.
One of the reasons I was in favour of a 5-day Cheltenham Festival – though now I would prefer a 3-Day Festival in March, with a 2-Day festival before Christmas or in late January – is that the fifth-day would have provided Cheltenham with a safety-net if a great storm, snow or frost, caused one-day of the meeting to be called-off, with the planned racing for the fifth-day, in my mind a charity day, replaced by the previously abandoned day’s racing.
As a critic of the overkill of all-weather racing, especially during the summer months when it brings little benefit to the sport, the all-weather program through the winter months provides such a safety-net for racing’s finances. So does it not make sense for there to be only all-weather meetings as a constant on the Sunday after a major meeting on the Saturday, to add flexibility in the calendar of racing where none exists at the moment?
Surely, if the racecourse is fit for racing on the Sunday, it would make life much simpler for racecourses, sponsors, I.T.V., satellite broadcasters, caterers, owners, jockeys, trainers, race-goers and the local restaurants, hostelries and the local economy as a whole, if it was known that the meeting would transfer, weather permitting, to the following day in the event of an abandonment on the Saturday?
Yes, it is far easier for meetings to be re-scheduled in Ireland due to having blank days in the week. Lucky old Ireland, eh! But to use a hackneyed phrase that falls into the category of the bleedin’ obvious, it is not rocket science to build into the racing calendar during the winter months the flexibility of using all-weather meetings in order to give the main fayre room to breathe and adapt to conditions, to move a meeting to the following day.
As clarification, I am fully aware that if a racecourse is underwater, frost-bound or covered by a deep layer of snow, the proposal I present would not make the slightest difference. And that will happen more often than not. Winter is winter, is it not? And when that happens the present method of transferring the main races to other courses later in the week will remain the option easiest travelled. The problem is, though, because of the upside-down set-up of racing’s governance, where racecourses own the majority of the races and what is in the best interests of the sport as a whole, is neither their care nor their business, it is the B.H.A.’s only option at the moment.