“A success but with caveats” would be one way to describe the first day’s action here for almost a year, in which time the home straight has been dug up and relaid at a cost of £300,000 to remove the ridges for which this seaside track had become notorious. The flattening part of the project appears to have gone well but in other respects course officials may have felt they were sailing a little close to the wind, particularly when, during the last two races, five horses slipped on the home turn at the intersection between the old round track and the new straight.
Fortunately, none of the five fell and indeed none of them even seemed to lose their position or momentum. When the first three scrabbled to keep their footing in the penultimate race, it seemed from the stands as though the tightness of the bend could be to blame but Jack Mitchell, one of the jockeys involved, was unequivocal: “It was a slip. It’s false ground.”
The apprentices in the final race approached the bend at what seemed, sensibly, a steadier pace but L Ge R, the first around the turn, visibly lost her purchase for a stride, as did Nifty Kier on her outside. “It’s just a lot slippier than we were expecting,” said Adam McLean, the rider of L Ge R. “It’s very loose. You put a foot on it and it skids.”
Richard Aldous, the clerk of the course, caught McLean as he returned to the weighing room to talk through the incident and promised action before the next raceday here on 15 September. “It’s an issue that we’ve just got to look at and rectify,” he said, acknowledging that it had taken him by surprise. “Nothing’s ever happened there before with the old Yarmouth.”
Aldous and his colleagues may feel cursed by seasonally inappropriate weather. The plan had been to reseed the grass up the mile-long straight in October, in which case resuming action in June seemed a reasonable ambition. But Yarmouth’s manager, Glen Tubby, reports the course was waterlogged last autumn, delaying levelling work until spring, so that the seeding was only completed by mid-March.
In need of a wet, mild spring, Yarmouth got a cold, dry one, delaying growth, such that one of the winning trainers here, Roger Varian, expressed surprise at being able to race on a surface that had been bare just a few short months ago. Course officials were plainly eager to reopen in time for this bank holiday fixture, which attracts their biggest crowd of the year, though Tubby stressed: “The one thing that Arc [the parent company] have said all along is that financial considerations are not a consideration for today.
“Today’s about making sure that the track is safe to race on, that the ground is looked after and that the people who do come along have a good time.”
Aldous seemed happy about how his turf had coped with the first 66 horses to pound over it. The next test will be three consecutive days of action next month, when he must hope for less than the 45mm of recent rain. As well as the slipping on the bend, he plans to address the boggy patch on the far rail close to the winning post which had to be railed off here, reducing the home straight to half its normal width.
Another of racing’s lower-profile tracks gets its turn in the spotlight on Monday when Ripon will be the venue for Victoria Pendleton’s first race as a licensed jockey, almost two months after the former Olympic cyclist finished eighth of 11 in a charity race at Newbury.
Pendleton now competes as an amateur jockey in a race confined to others of a comparable lack of experience but a first victory appears to be a lot to ask.
Royal Etiquette, her eight-year-old mount in the 5.30 race, has three wins to his name from 58 starts and was trading at 14-1 in bookmakers’ lists on Sunday night.
The draw has not been kind, requiring the pair to start wide, from stall 14 of the 15 runners. The horse’s trainer, Lawney Hill, said of Pendleton: “It is another step up the ladder and the main thing is to try and keep her safe and give her another good experience.”
