Another Year Over

Well another year comes to an end and it is worrying, as one gets older, the years seem to pass by faster and faster.

Once again I have failed in my quest to visit every racecourse in the UK in a calendar year, I only managed to visit 53 different courses during the year.

Although the cause wasn’t helped this year by the appalling bad weather, missing several weeks racing due to illness and a few weeks due to the Olympic Games.

I cannot remember a year where there have been so many races lost to the weather throughout the year, if memory serves me correct March is the only month where we didn’t lose a meeting due to weather related incidents.

There have been plenty of racing highlights choose from this year and although I am, at heart, a National Hunt man the two days that really stand out were both at Ascot flat meetings.

The Saturday of Royal Ascot and the UK début of Black Caviar, the anticipation and expectation then the sheer tension of the race itself as her rider seemed to do his utmost to throw the race away and the long, palpable, almost eternal pause as we waited for Nick Bostock to call the result. Followed by the relief we were not going to witness a jockey lynching.

Then there was Champions Day and the dénouement to Frankel's career. Even that was not without drama with the testing conditions and the final decision about his participation not being made until mid-morning. I've never experienced an atmosphere like it on a racecourse and Frankel seemed to know he was the star and the centre of attention. 32,348 people there and almost every one wanting to see the one horse.

He was cheered out, cheered in the race and cheered home. Barely a dry eye in the house. Even wizened hacks had tears rolling down their cheeks as he won.

 It was also appropriate that in the race before Excelebration, for whom Frankel had been a nemesis, arguably ran the race of his life to deservedly win the QEII. 

It was the perfect racing day.

Of course it hasn’t been all roses in the racing world and this month we have seen the closure of two racecourses with both Folkestone and Hereford staging what may well be their final meetings, although there is the very slight hope racing may again take place again at one or even both venues.

The closure of racecourses is a very emotive issue. I confess with both Hereford and Folkestone I do not have any emotional attachment to and being an unapologetic, fully paid up, capitalist I can see the financial logic and business reasoning behind the closure of the courses.

However I can also fully understand the emotional responses to the closures. BBC Radio’s erstwhile racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght first went racing at Hereford and is a local lad. I can understand the bond that can exists with your first and / or local course – I feel the same way about Fontwell, almost to an obsessive degree.

I know I would fight tooth and nail if there was any suggestion of closing Fontwell, even if the economic case was compelling. So I would be hypocritical if I were to criticise those who fight to preserve Hereford and Folkestone.

What has irritated me though are those who suddenly jumped on a bandwagon to support Hereford and Folkestone.  There are still no official attendance figures available for either of the final meetings but, by all accounts, the courses were almost packed to the gunnels.

Where were these people when other meetings were taking place? Hereford often struggled to attract 1,000 racegoers, just 548 attended Folkestone’s meeting on 31^st January this year.

How many of the great and good in the racing media, quick to criticise the closures, actually turn up at the “smaller” courses on a regular basis?

Are the vast numbers turning up at the final meetings those who really care or are they the same rubberneckers who slow down to have a look when they encounter an accident whilst driving.

I have to confess I deliberately avoided the final meetings at both Hereford and Folkestone for that very reason. Indeed I would never knowingly go to a “final meeting” at any course because I know those final memories would not reflect the reality.

Note I said I wouldn’t knowingly go to a final meeting at a track, I have once attended a “final” meeting unknowingly.

It is quite ironic, knowing how much I dislike artificial surface racing, that I was at what turned out to be Great Leighs final meeting back in January 2009.

Of course none of us knew it at the time, it was only after racing had finished we found out.

In keeping with the incomplete facilities at the course there was no press room so John Holmes office used to double up as a “press room”. It wasn’t a big deal as there were only three of us working there that evening, two from the Racing Post and myself. It was only as we were packing up after a nondescript evenings racing that we were “tipped off” the course would be going into administration the following day.

It was a good way for a course to close as ones final memories were of a “normal” race meeting and not of a contrived wake.       

So 2012 has gone so what does 2013 hold?

We certainly have quite a few potential stars to look forward to in the jumping world, plus will Dawn Approach be the next big flat star?

I’ll have another attempt at doing every UK course in a calendar year, maybe my final attempt, as 2013 may be my final year racing.

I’m finding putting in the mileage in is getting increasingly difficult, not just the ever increasing fuel costs entailed in driving in excess of 30,000 miles a year but it is, frankly, knackering. I’m not a youngster anymore and my body is telling me to slow down and I’m paying the price for ignoring it.

I had planned to give up the racing at the end of 2015 but I now have some other, non-racing, writing projects on the horizon and, frankly, they are much more financially lucrative than writing about racing.

In addition one of the planned projects will need three months dedicated work.

So 2013 may well be my racing swansong, all the more reason to visit every course this year, as I have always said once I write my final racing report, I will walk away from the sport for good.

Happy New Year to you all may it bring all that you wish for.    

The Hiatus Returns

Well after the excitement of the Olympic Games and what in this house is called the State Visit (it’s the annual visit of my Mother who always does a Queen and has a summer break at a country retreat – in her case not Balmoral but Milton Keynes) and before the Paralympics I have actually managed to get some racing in, although it looks as though August is going to be my quietest racing month for a long time with only six days racing in the entire month.

The highlight of the return to racing was my annual visit to Cartmel, one of the highlights of my racing year. This is the first time I’ve been to their August meeting, I normally go to the Saturday of their May Bank Holiday meeting but with the changed Bank Holidays this year it clashed with Derby Day and, much as I love Cartmel, The Derby will always win that battle.

It was strange going to the Thursday evening meeting at Cartmel, it was so much quieter, only around 4,000 as opposed to the 12 – 15,000 on the Bank Holiday meetings.

I’m also glad it wasn’t my first visit to the course as it seems the jobsworth  team were manning the gates last Thursday. Instead of the usual warm friendly welcome, this jobsworth security guard was seemingly unable to recognise or identify either the parking badge on my car or my RCA Press badge or PASS card. When he finally, grudgingly let me in he made me go into the public car park. Although on this occasion it was no bad thing as arriving five hours before the first race I was able to grab a prime parking spot against the rails next to a hurdle and the open ditch.

Cartmel may be in the most beautiful natural setting but it is also a technological backwater,  a place lost in time, in a time that pre-dates mobile phone signals. Although as somebody who considers mobile phones a real pain actually having no signal was quite nice.

Whatever phone signal or not Cartmel shares top billing with Hexham for being the national hunt course in the most beautiful setting – although Ludlow, Perth and Kelso are not that far behind.

By strange coincidence, three days later I was at the most beautifully located flat course, as I spent Sunday afternoon on the Sussex Downs at Goodwood a delightful course but I wish their dress rules were no so strict.

Many people complain about the rigidity of the Ascot dress code but, in it’s own way, Goodwoods is even stricter. In the members enclosure it is obligatory for gentlemen to keep their jackets on when outside, without exception. I say without exception, that’s not quite true, on the race days when the mercury is approaching record levels they sometimes relent and make the announcement “Gentlemen in the Richmond Enclosure may remove their jackets if they wish.”

Although it was hot at Goodwood on Sunday the temperatures didn’t quite reach the level to trigger the welcome announcement.

As a result us gentlemen had to walk around with our own personal saunas – you would think, in the 21^st century, people should be able and allowed, to decide when they can remove their jackets.

I write this as final preparations are being made for the Paralympic opening ceremony in London and I am fortunate to have tickets for several days of the event, so there will be another racing hiatus before full service resumes in September.

However I have one last racing trip and I use the word last in more sense than one as, tomorrow evening I’m off to Hereford. Unless you’ve been travelling to Mars with Curiosity you will know that Hereford, along with Folkestone, is scheduled to close at the end of this year. So tomorrows visit really could be my final visit to the course.  OK I will not pretend it’s the prettiest or best course in the country and last time I was there I had to be towed out of the bog, sorry car park, by a tractor but it will be a shame to see it close.

Taking the sentiment away however and racecourses should not be exempt from the economic realities and both Hereford and Folkestone need significant investment after too many years of under investment.

It would be tempting to attend the final meeting at both courses but, perversely, both final meetings will attract significantly larger attendance than normal not only from punters but from the media. The irony will be, for most of the media attending the swansong or gnashing their teeth at the closure it will probably be their only visit to the course. Indeed how many of them will actually realise Folkestone racecourse isn’t actually in Folkestone?

The other significant racing news in the past few weeks is the news that Channel 4 Racing will be produced by IMG and Clare Balding will be the lead presenter.

There has been some speculation that Balding will only be fronting the major meetings but my sources close to Channel Four have told me Clare will be presenting between 30-40 days racing in 2013.

The existing presenters have yet to be told if they will be retained.

One hopes it will lead to a complete makeover for Channel Four Racing as it has become stale in recent years.

This is how I would change things.

Only a single presenter is required, unless two big meetings are being covered in which case there is an argument for having a presenter at each course but two presenters at the same course is pointless.

John Francome and Jim McGrath are both past their "use by" date and there are plenty of other, better, paddock commentators out there. Somebody, presumably very tongue in cheek, suggested I should be a paddock commentator. To which my response included the words body, dead, my and over – although if IMG are looking for somebody to work in the production team they know where I am.

I would have Sean Boyce as the betting guru.

Apart from being eye candy (although I don't find her particularly attractive myself) Emma Spencer is very lightweight and contributes very little and being eye candy is no justification for a role.

I would retain Nick Luck, Alastair Down , Alice Plunket and Mike Cattamole from the presentation team. I would also use Tommo at the big meetings for adding the "colour".

I don't see the need for C4 to have their own commentators, just use the on-course commentary - (almost) all the commentators on the rosta are of good enough quality for C4. If C4 were to use their own commentators then Simon Holt and Richard Hoiles (the best commentator we have by a country mile) would be the obvious main callers, with Stewart Machin, David Fitzgerald, Mark Johnson and Ian Bartlett as the others.

There you go Channel Four racing taken care of.