New drains will stop Ebor washout

Aug 23 2008 The Journal

THERE will be no more racing on York’s Knavesmire until next May. By then the £2.5m drainage scheme will have been completed and, hopefully, there will be no repeat of this week’s entire Ebor festival going down the drain.

Apart from their failure to announce a precautionary inspection in advance of the first day, the York executive did everything in their power to get the high profile fixture on. Racecourse chairman Nicholas Wrigley reckons the four-day meeting would have been saved had the drainage work had already been in place.

Anyway, if the meeting had survived and they had raced on heavy ground it would not have been the ideal scenario, especially with so much prize-money at stake and further Pattern status to be achieved.

Wrigley bases his judgement on the fact that down the back straight, where there are two drains on either side of the track, the surface was in good condition albeit on the soft side. The difficult areas were on the far bend around the four-furlong mark where only one drain has been laid.

However, that’s water under the bridge now and all credit to the British Horseracing Authority, headed by Ruth Quinn, for saving eight of the races that were staged at Newbury and Newmarket yesterday and again at Newmarket and Goodwood today.

It’s vitally important for the Pattern to be preserved and that Group One events, the Juddmonte International, Nunthorpe Stakes and Yorkshire Oaks, are saved from the mud and gloom of York.

Not long ago, such a salvage operation would have been unheard of within the corridors of power of the sport. Thankfully, in an ever-changing world and climate, racing’s administrators have become more adaptable. It was equally important that a heritage handicap like the Ebor should be rescheduled.

While not carrying the same clout as the Juddmonte and other Group races in terms of prestige, it’s the biggest betting event of the entire meeting and was found a temporary home at Newbury. Shame about the race name being changed.