Worcester Walkover

Too Generous After Winning at Worcester Last Week

Today there are five flat meetings at Newmarkat, Doncaster, Epsom, Folkestone and Warwick but the last named meeting has to pass an 8am inspection.  Did anyone see the rain coming down at Catterick yesterday?  The meeting was abandoned after the 3.50pm race and the track looked like it would have been better to hold a motorbike scramble meeting!  Yet as we have been saying all along it is a mixed bag across the country with the weather at the moment and the ground at todays Folkestone meeting is given as good to firm!  All the other meetings are either soft or heavy!  We are due quite a bit more rain at Pond House today but surely the sun has got to start shining soon?!

The last race at Worcester yesterday was a walk over after all the trainers withdrew their runners, bar the Nigel Twiston-Davies horse who was left in as previously arranged.  This was done to collect the prize money so that the racecourse did not get to keep it as this is what would have happened had there been no runners at all.  This prize money will now most likely be given to charity.  I am in full support of the trainers action as the prize money situation at the moment is a joke.  Although unfortunate for some involved in the sport something had to be done.  Now I see the BHA are threatenng to take action over the boycott.  As long as the trainers stick together over the matter they should all be okay.  I think they should boycott a whole meeting to show that they really mean it!  With no horses there would be no races to watch and no betting, then I am sure that would create a right chaos.  For example, Too Generous dead heated when winning a Bumper at Worcester last week.  She won just over £900 for winning the race.  Take out expenses such as entry fees, jockey, transport etc and the poor owner probably took home little if any prize money!  There just seems to be such extremes in the prize momey distribution however.  Take the first two races at Newmarket today.  There are just six and nine runners with win prize money of approximately £31,000 and £34,000 respectively.  The worst winning prize moeny on the card is £6409.  The big tracks do not seem to have a lot to worry about but then have a look at Folkestone.  They have two races worth just £1704.  Something has to happen.  I wonder if the owners told their trainers to withdraw their horses what the BHA could actually do?

I cannot believe that 28,000 people are going to turn up to watch Haye v Chisora's boxing match on Saturday.  How can our boxing association allow them to fight with Luxembourg licenses?  I bet they don't want to fight in their own country.  Why don't they just say that you need at licence from the country that is holding the fight as that would be a stop to this joke.