Hamilton off

Jun 28, 2022 -- 9:21AM, StillLearning wrote:

farcical scenes...again

Absolutely agree. This is what you get when the ground is over watered, you get false patches and generally unsafe surfaces. Supposedly good to firm going at Hamilton today, you don't kick the top off the surface or leave prints in the surface either if that's what it truly is.

It's a total shambles. Not just today, all over the UK and Ireland, horses slipping up on bends, finishing times clearly indicating the going is wildly inaccurate.

The game's difficult enough without having to guess at what going we're getting served up, which amounts to nothing more than total guesswork by the clerks.

Jun 28, 2022 -- 9:33AM, the dealer wrote:

We have had next to no rain up here for weeks, they wouldn't be racing if they hadn't watered. The course needs a good drenching for it get into the ground,

Sorry the dealer, I appreciate it may be your opinion, but that's just wholly inaccurate and actually feeds the myth that's becoming more and more common these days.

If they hadn't watered it would have been genuinely quick ground end of story. To say we couldn't have raced at Hamilton yesterday if we hadn't artificially watered is just not true. Back in the day we had races run on truly firm and even hard going. This just isn't allowed to happen any more and it must be a directive from the decision makers at the top of the game.

The crux of the problem for me is the animal rights people and those of a similar mindset, pressuring the industry as a whole over a number of years to avoid running horses on genuinely quick going. The misconception is that quick going creates faster animals and times which creates more chance of fatalities. This, to my knowledge, has never been proven to be true. It began with the high profile national hunt meetings and now its creeping into both codes of the sport for most meetings up and down the country.

So long as there is a decent covering of grass, kept at a suitable height of cut, the actual going in itself is not dangerous. Courses are artificially overwatered and you end up getting false surfaces, caused by the water from the sprinkler systems not properly draining away down low enough, you end up with weak growth on the surface and in the roots below the surface, which causes the dangerous surfaces, accentuated  when you get sudden downpours as we get in the UK and Ireland. This is then what causes horses running at speed round sharp bends at course like Chester and Hamilton to name but two to take false steps.

As I said yesterday, its been creeping into the sport for a while and nobody seems willing or able to speak out about it. Mr Frisk's Grand National record will never be in danger given the current mindset of Clerks up and down the country.

Like most things, it'll take a horse or jockey to get seriously injured as a result of racing or riding on false ground for it to be even thought about. It's as important as the careless / dangerous riding debates that are coming up more regulalry.

I can only think of one racing podcast that I listen to which regular flags the issue of false going reports and poor track conditions up as a massive problem, and rightly so. The rest just bury their head in the sand and try and defend clerks as having "difficult" jobs to do. Its no more difficult a job than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

The 1st race at Pontefract on Monday saw Serena Brotherton swinging wide into the straight to get near to the stand side rail. If the given going as Good was to be truly believed, why would she even have done that? The going stayed Good for the whole meeting as far as I know, with some races being nearly 8 seconds above standard. That's just not right.