Lingfield’s Flat card on the all-weather on Friday was an early casualty, and Saturday’s meeting at the same course, which will come to the rescue of ITV Racing should it go ahead, is subject to an 8am inspection. The weekend’s jumps meetings are also long gone, drivers across the country are stuck in snowdrifts and the Met Office’s yellow weather warning will be in place until Monday at least – and yet, as things stand, there will still be racing at Southwell on Friday afternoon. Assuming, that is, that at least two horses per race actually make it to the track.
“Having carefully reviewed the current situation here at Southwell and spoken to a number of trainers whose horses are currently travelling to the racecourse,” the track stated on Twitter about half an hour ago, the decision is for racing to go ahead.
Trainers who have been unable to get their horses out of their yards, though, include Kim Bailey, whose Charbel, who is due to run in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham a week on Wednesday, was the undoubted star name on Southwell’s card of ‘bumpers for jumpers’.
These flat meetings for National Hunt horses are the modern equivalent of – and a significant improvement on – the trotting at Steerebeck in Belgium, which used to fill the gaps in the betting-shop schedule when British racing was snowed under and is a name that will mean nothing to anyone under the age of 35. Noble though the BHA’s sentiment is, however, in bending over backwards to keep turnover rolling, no one could have foreseen when this meeting was scheduled just how difficult it would be to move around the country this morning. At the last count, 15 of the 43 horses declared to run overnight have been declared non-runners.
More are sure to follow, and three of the seven events already have prohibitive favourites as a result. Among the remainder, though, Volcanic (2.45) could be the pick of the prices in a contest between three quite evenly-matched runners, while Brotherly Company (3.20), who registered a win on Southwell’s Fibresand in January, also catches the eye at 6-4.
Friday tips
Southwell 1.45 Haulani 2.15 Tomngerry 2.45 Volcanic 3.20 Brotherly Company 3.50 Good Tradition 4.25 Fin And Game 5.00 Flash The Steel
