by With heavy rain forcing the second game of the month at Redcar to be abandoned this week, PETER BARRON he finds out what it means behind the scenes when a race meeting is called off
WHEN Stephen Berry arrived at work at Redcar Racecourse at 5.30am on Monday, he had no reason to think that the day’s meeting would not go ahead as planned.
After weeks of hard work by Redcar’s track manager and his team of seven full-time ground crews, the 2024 season was about to begin at the seaside course where horse racing has been held for over 150 years.
But then the heavens opened. Between 6am and 6.50am, six millimeters of rain fell on land that was already ‘heavy’. As a result Stephen, along with Acting Clerk of the Course, Steve Gofton, carried out a precautionary inspection at 7.45am and, with standing water on the road, they had no choice but to abandon the meeting.
“It’s heartbreaking for everyone, but the safety of the riders and the horses must come first,” Stephen said coyly. “In days gone by, they might have taken more risks, but not anymore.”
As he spoke, little more than an hour after the abandonment, the sun was shining on the thick, soggy Redcar turf, but it was too late to save the day.
Redcar is not alone in suffering from the extremely wet weather. Race meetings have been lost all over the country, but what is particularly frustrating for the Redcar team is that this is the second final in a row this month.
The 2024 season at the course was due to open on April 1 – a traditional day of family fun for Easter Monday – but that too was not clean.
Everything possible was done for stage racing two weeks later. With the ’round course’ still under water, Redcar officials have worked with the British Horse Racing Authority to revise the April 15 racing programme, so that the seven races will be run on the ‘straight course’.
In the meantime, Stephen and his team reinstalled the existing rail on three stretches of straight track to avoid more areas of waterlogged land. In addition, each race was restricted to a maximum of ten runners to reduce the impact of the number of early stalls on the soft ground.
But all that effort and planning – along with the major investment in Redcar’s drainage system in recent years – was not in vain, and nature was unchanging on the morning of the meeting.
“There is nothing else we could have done, perhaps, but we are at the mercy of the elements, and there is nowhere for so much water to go,” explained Stephen.
In 2022, the course’s rain gauge recorded 493 millimeters. Last year, the total rose to 660mm, and 210mm has already fallen since the start of this year.
“This is the worst spell of rain I’ve ever seen,” said Stephen, who has been a member of the Redcar ground team for 39 years, 15 of them as track manager, following in the footsteps of his father, John.
Having grown up just a stone’s throw from the racecourse, it’s been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, and his job is that of an obnoxious weather watcher.
“I drive my wife crazy,” he admitted. “The first thing I do in the morning is open the curtains to check the weather, and I have every weather app on my phone.”
He even has a rain gauge in his back garden and has been known to go out in the dark, during many sleepless nights, to check the level with a torch, knowing how much is involved.
Indeed, what members of the public fail to see when a race meeting is abandoned is the scale of the logistical operation involved. A decision needs to be made as soon as possible to ban horse transport across the country, and an extensive communication exercise is taking effect.
Around 500 people – in a long list of roles – are needed to put on a race meeting at Redcar. As well as the jockeys, trainers and stable staff, the list includes race day attendants for turnpikes and car parks, caterers, security staff, paramedics, first aiders, vets, farriers, stall handlers, plumbers, electricians and technicians.
On Easter Monday, the extended list included a range of family entertainers: stilt walkers, face painters, bouncy castle operators, and the Easter Bunny himself.
When an abandonment is announced on the morning of a meeting, the racecourse must pay 100 per cent of team costs, and refund all advance tickets, meaning Redcar has suffered a significant financial loss so far this year.
“It’s been really tough but you can expect people to support us by racing when we get good weather,” said Redcar general manager Amy Fair.
There are 16 more meetings at Redcar this year, starting on May 2, and building towards the next big family day on Bank Holiday Monday, May 27, when the highlight is the historic Zetland Gold Cup.
“We’ll get this latest disappointment out of our systems, then get back to doing whatever is needed before the next meeting,” Stephen said.
“You see, within a few weeks, we’ll probably have to water the road because there’s too much sun!”
There is a well-worn phrase that there is no such thing as racing certainty – and Redcar’s training manager knows it as well as anyone.
