3 Inspections at Wincanton

[Gullible]

Sorry but IMO having 3 inspections at Wincanton is a joke. Yes I agree that the safety of the horses is paramount but put yourself in the position of the trainers especially the small yards travelling some distance who will have set off early this morning and will not be given any compensation ie expenses when they could quite easily have turned around to lessen the costs. I have no doubt that part of the reason for the delay is because the meeting is on terrestrial TV today and Wincanton would/will loose their money from them Had I been one of the trainers travelling any distance I would have self certificated my horse and withdrew it. !!!

 

[viking]

Completely agree the meeting should’ve been called off after the first inspection. Easy to say with hindsight (now it has been called off)

 

[Ian_Davies]

Completely agree the meeting should’ve been called off after the first inspection. Easy to say with hindsight (now it has been called off)

I understand the frustration I'm reading on social media, but the commercial pressure on Wincanton racecourse to move Heaven and Earth to get this meeting on will have been enormous.

Saturday meeting with ITV coverage.

Racegoers are of course important to racecourses (big crowd lost too by cancelling) but in the modern world servicing the off-course industry takes commercial priority and anyone going racing nowadays needs to realise that when deciding whether to buy tickets and set off because this modern commercial culture won't change.

As for owners, trainers and travelling staff, this goes with the territory when you're involved in the entertainment and leisure industry.

It's particularly annoying for owners (no horses, no racing and owning horses is expensive) but tbh it's kinda what you sign up for by becoming an owner.

But for trainers, jockeys and staff - it's simply an occasional and seasonal occupational hazard, things like this go with the job, unfortunately.

 

[Gullible]

The temperature in Wincanton now 11:45 is 2 degrees (and that is in the town) it would take an age to come out of the ground

 

[Barnestormer]

Look on the bright side.
The ITV Racing team will have more time to talk complete boll***s between races!!!

 

[Gullible]

The only bright side to this that I can see is that Wincanton in the past have distributed all the prepared food to the needy people in the area rather than just dump it in the bin

 

[jinnyj]

I would have questioned as a trainer whether the meeting would have survived the frost but with covers these days you are reliant on complete honesty from the course. I would not have been happy personally on such a late call but probably would have sent a local friend to go and have a look.

 

[Gullible]

IMO it is now time to take the decision of wether a meeting is off or not out of the hands of people(s) on the racecourse and to put in the hands of technology !
Weather forecasts are very accurate these days so all you need is a picture of the course showing where the sun if any will cover, feed in predicted sunshine,how much frost is in the ground, expected temperature giving a percentage chance of the ability to race. Set a chance of say 70% to race as the minimum or at least let the trainers aware of this result so that they can make a decision to proceed or go back home.