Is the time nigh for Summer Jumps Racing?

In a week where the BHA have had to launch an investigation into the deaths of four horses at Newton Abbot, it does seem to be a wider talking point of the future of Summer Jumps Racing, and whether it needs to be adapted, or binned completely.

For context, 20 out of the 75 runners at Newton Abbott failed to finish their races, with four fatalities included in this number. Another finished lame, whilst Holerday Ridge bled from the nose.

This follows days at Market Rasen and Cartmel where three horses died at each meeting.

This is in contrast with the numbers of 112 deaths recorded from 29,947 runners in the jumps season previous, with a rate of 0.37.

The investigation will hopefully find that there was a rationale behind the deaths, and that improvements can be made, but I will ask the forum a set of wider questions -


Do you think Summer Jumping should continue as it is?

If not, do you want it stopped?

if not, what changes would you make, and why?

 

Scrap it. Personally, I wouldn't notice. My view is that I doubt every single divot is filled in before each race and these can be very dangerous for horses galloping/jumping at speed. When the ground is soft it isn't so bad as the hooves will just re-arrange them. It's easy for the likes of us to sprain an ankle but when you think of animals of around 450kilos thundering down on a firm divot I dread to imagine what would happen to those legs. Virging on cruel

 

6 weeks off, would be enough.

 

That, to be honest, would almost to the syllable echo my thoughts on the matter.

Maybe though from May to the end of August cap the number of NH meetings, in the Isle, to no more than 3 a week. By doing so hopefully these contests would attract far more entries and, potentially, see more interesting and appealing races run. And for more money as well to better support the smaller stables who rely on summer jumping to boast profits or even survive for another campaign.

Also as I've said many times a major problem for NH racing in general is the 'better' horses are no longer transferring to that code from the Flat. A few do, of course, but for financial reasons the same horses who 10-15 years ago would become 3 or 4 hurdlers are now being sold to continue to race abroad (Australia, Far East or the Middle East in particular) or instead just diverted to the UK all-weather scene. The cold hard fact is that only increased NH prizemoney will alter this scenario.

 

For decades, N.H. Racing used to finish with Sandown’s Whitbread Gold Cup meeting and restart in October with the Hedge Hopper’s Hurdle at Newbury.
I should prefer that to be reinstated instead of Mickey Mouse summer racing.

 

I see that summer jumping actually takes precedence in the Isle, of the morrow, with 2 out of the 3 meetings in the land being of the NH variety.

The feature fixture is at Uttoxeter and looks a decent card with the £75,000 Summer Cup (a proper prizemoney pot) supported by 6 other contests (none worth less than £15k). It will be interesting to see how it holds up (in terms of attendance and betting turnover) against a comparatively sized Sunday Flat fixture.

I must say though that if summer jumping held a meet like this (with a very decent prize contained within) every 7-10 days then many of the 'negatives' surrounding summer jumping would be cast aside at a stroke. Frowns, as they say, would be turned upside down...

 

Okay, I expect most folks on here know that I am not a follower of the slow old plodder game, so I will try to be objective.

Q: Do you think Summer Jumping should continue as it is?
A: No. Clearly there is something wrong but I do not think that there is just one simple fix. In the ‘good old days’ the summer racing existed for the small number of horses that preferred quicker ground (that they rarely got in the winter months). Obviously that meant almost always small fields, uncompetitive races with lots of odds-on favourites that attracted small crowds. So the racecourses really only profited from the Levy payments that subsidised them. I remember back in the day how most of the fixtures used to be the same old tracks like Bangor, Fontwell, Devon & Exeter, Hereford, Newton Abbot, Perth and Plumpton. August BH weekend there used to be Cartmel. There were only three maybe four fixtures a week.

Q: If not, do you want it stopped?
A: I confess that the first ever meeting that I went to was a summer jumps card at Wetherby. I got a bus from Leeds, where I was living at the time, and the card was hardly appealing to small punters with no more than six runners in any race and several odds-on favourites leaving most of the bookies offering just forecast betting as 10% betting tax deductions still existed in those days. I am sceptical about whether fewer meetings would result in larger fields making more competitive racing, increasing footfall; because the summer jumps season does only seem to be ten weeks of the year, so a fifth of the calendar. It did originally have a stated purpose, so I do not want it stopped simply because of expansion overreach.

Q: If not, what changes would you make, and why?
A: Climate Change (blamed for the amount of rain in recent years) could be the golden bullet ensuring that we never see fast ground again but the BHA could just insist that courses are watered to produce ‘safe’ ground; of course that might turn out to be expensive. If France Galop can water six or seven major French tracks routinely so that the going is never quick, then surely a handful of British tracks can do the same occasionally. Those of a certain vintage can probably remember the days when there used to be a going of “hard” describing when it was like concrete (a higher level than “firm”) at tracks that had no watering systems but times have moved on so we scarcely even see “firm” these days.

 

Summer jumping gets ITV1 coverage, on Saturday, with 3 races broadcast from Market Rasen - decent card with the feature event worth £100,000.

Just had an early look at the final decs and, as I say, it looks quite nice - Lieutenant Henderson even has a runner at the meet.

 

Afraid so. One year the Epsom Derby was on hard ground. If I remember correctly it was Psidium who won that (66/1 I think)

 

Yes, the horse that Lester rode in France and said he had no chance in the Derby. Psidium’s trainer, Harry Wragg, prayed and prayed for rain for his talented horse, Sovrango, who never lost on soft ground. Yet rain never came and Sovrango finished fourth.

 

Yes, Tam, I was working abroad in 1961 on my first full contract. Couldn't remember a French jockey winning the Derby before Roger Poincelet and Psidium shocked the racing world at 66/1. It was before the advent of betting shops. so the occasional punter who did not want a credit account, used the postal system with bookmakers based in Scotland (where the related laws on betting were quite different). My younger brother, using his magic golden pin I guess, backed Psidium. He went to the Kingston-on-Thames main post office to make sure the envelope with his bet was clearly stamped with the date and time, and posted it off to the Scottish bookie as usual. To his horror he received a letter with enclosures of the bet, from the bookie (J John, or something like that) advising him that his bet had been refused as it did not meet the full postal betting requirements. However, to give my kid brother credit, he really 'went to town' to protest this unfair decision. He brought in the old Sporting Life 'green' service, and sent them full details with clear copies of the bet, in the hope that they would go in to bat for him. They certainly did, as after a short tussle with the Glasgow bookmaker, the latter paid-up on the wager in full. Apologies, for any errors in detail, but am going on a memory of years gone by, and that's pretty tough for this old geezer!

Note: Although betting shops were actually legalized in 1961, it took a while for them to get going, so to speak. Gained momentum rapidly, however, and soon a 100 or so new ones were opening every week.

 

Hi Swannie.
Yes, but there were plenty of betting offices in Burnley, my home town, prior to ‘61 and the police never bothered enforcing the illegality at all.
However, when I went to the Isle of Man in ‘66, the Tynwald still classed them as ‘illegal’ and didn’t allow any fascia boards outside their building to identify their mode of trade.
Wanting a bet and having been told which premises the local bookie used, a policeman said “You shouldn’t be going in there” as I entered the building,
There was a large, totally empty room with an old wooden serving hatch. I tapped on it and the bookie opened the hatch.
I gave him my bet, “one pound each way on Off The Hook, ridden by Jimmy Lindley for Towser Gosden.”
I rang up later to catch the result….it won at 100/8.
I’d shared the bet with my friend, Steve, and we celebrated until we were legless. Walking along the promenade when we left the pub, Steve took out his pound notes and threw them into the air to celebrate. Half of them blew into the Irish Sea, and we laughed all the way back to our digs!
Happy days. I loved the Isle of Man.

 

We had a bookie's runner live next door to us and the bookie lived at the end of the road. It was easy to tell his house; it was the one with the posh car. Our neighbiur used to pop in and we would write out our bets on a piece of paper and off he went. He used to get some inside info now and again. I still remember one tip, Angazi at 8/1 which came in. I was doing a paper round at the time and after passing on that one I was often asked if I had any more. Gave us a greyhound tip once and I went to Reading (or Slough) just to back that one.

Later in life I could have easily fallen out with my neighbour who owned a horse called Belt Up. Great big plates for feet and one day the family disappeared off to Kempton, the ground was bottomless and it won at 33/1. I was not happy