Yarmouth racecourse, which resumed racing only last month after being out of action for nearly a year while the home straight was relaid, was forced to abandon its valuable card scheduled for Thursday after an incident in the fourth race at the track on Wednesday afternoon.
The remainder of Wednesday’s card was also abandoned after Passover and his jockey, Oisin Murphy, slipped up after crossing the line at the end of a 10-furlong handicap. Both horse and rider escaped unscathed.
Five horses appeared to suffer slips on the home turn at Yarmouth’s meeting on 30 August, the first since the straight was relaid at a cost of £300,000 to smooth out ridges on the racing surface. However, there were no apparent incidents at the same spot during Wednesday’s truncated card, which opened on ground described as good-to-firm, firm in places but was then hit by heavy rain.
“I wasn’t questioned [by the stewards], but I think on safety grounds it’s the right decision,” Murphy said following the announcement that the card had been abandoned. “The ground was quite quick and with the rain they’ve had on top of it, it made it quite slippy and unfortunately my horse came down.
“It sometimes happens at Bath [when there is heavy rain on fast ground] on the top bend there, it becomes slippy and they can lose their back end. I don’t think the clerk of the course is responsible, it’s down to the weather.”
The decision to abandon racing on Thursday, the final card of Yarmouth’s three-day showpiece meeting, was taken following an inspection at 5pm. “The rain arrived at about 2.50pm,” Richard Aldous, the clerk of the course, said. “It became apparent after the fourth race there was an issue and we held an inquiry following which the meeting was abandoned on health and safety grounds.”
Jon Pullin, director of racing operations for ARC, which owns Yarmouth, added: “We’ve been to have a good look just to see what this rain has actually done and the impact of it. We’ve had over 10mm since 3pm already and having looked at the track our view is that we’re not going to be safe enough to guarantee racing [on Thursday].”
Hugo Palmer, who was due to saddle two fancied runners at Yarmouth on Thursday, seemed to suggest on Twitter that the track should not have reopened at all this year, but the tweet was subsequently deleted and he later explained that he would be happy to send runners to the track in future.
“Clearly in their opinion it’s not fit for racing tomorrow, but I’m sure no one is more disappointed about that than they are,” Palmer said. “They’ve waited a long time. Safety has got to come first and I’m sure they’ve made the right decision. I was looking forward to going tomorrow, hence my frustration. A lot of rain on fast ground makes it unsafe. I was hoping it would be safe for tomorrow but it’s not in their opinion. It’s a great shame. If they think it’s safe ground [in the future] I’m sure it will be and I’ll be happy to run there.”
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