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Haydock Park.12th May 2012

2.00 Hurdle Race 3 miles 18 runners

3.40 Hurdle Race 2 miles 19 runners

The runners stayed on the track throughout the preliminaries before both of these races. This was good, because it eliminated the quite legitimate “Am-I-going-to-be-left-behind?” worry which is so often a feature of races with big fields.

In the case of the 2.00 race:

prior to the start the runners were walking, which was good, but the jockeys were left to their own devices. The milled around quietly, but in a disorganised state. For two hundred years they would have been circling in single file, round and round, some yards behind the tapes, perfectly happy and relaxed, and easy for the starting team to control.

When the starter moved towards his rostrum, the “mob” moved up towards the tape, where they stopped. This was bad. (Had they been circling, the assistant starter could have kept them circling).  The starter told them to go back, which they did, in little groups, for various distances of their own choosing, and a few just stayed by the tapes. This was bad. Probably it would have been better if the routine (which doesn’t seem to exist at the moment) required the field to resume circling. This disjointed back-and-forth happened two or three times.  No harm done, nobody got kicked, horses quite relaxed, but dangerous and wrong. Eventually the “mob” was more or less in the right place and facing the right way and the starter sent them on their way. An adequate start, but the method left a lot to chance.

In the case of the 3.40 race:

the pre-start arrangements looked, on TV, much the same as before the 2.00 race but for some reason when the cameras revealed all the horses were revved up and circling in close formation at the trot. Why the difference? Of course in a 2-mile race a bad start is much more unfortunate for the jockeys concerned than in a 3-miler. Even so, it was weird. Was it a different starter? Round and round and round they went and, if this process had continued any longer than it did, the turf would have been transformed into a mud-bath. The scene was the opposite of relaxed, the opposite of safe and the opposite of fair, and when the starter suddenly scuttled towards his rostrum I thought that his manner was not exactly the way a starter should conduct himself. Bad for the jockeys’ nerves. However after a few more circuits he got them away in a fairly compact group. So, horrible, but no harm done.

I wonder what the starters themselves think about the starting situation. I have a feeling that nobody has bothered to ask them for quite some time.

I hazard a guess that the reason why this flaw in the system has been allowed to flourish is the fact that 90 percent of races (races with less than a dozen runners) are not affected by it. But that is no reason to ignore a flaw which so regularly disrupts some of the most important races. Every time it happens, it damages the race involved and harms the image of British racing. For no good reason.

Andrew Simpson.