The dry summer risks disrupting the early months of the horse racing season, with racecourses warning fixtures could be cancelled unless significant rain arrives in the coming weeks.
Tom Ryall, clerk of the course at Wincanton Racecourse in Somerset, said “a constant wet period for the next two months” is needed to make the ground soft enough to race on for their first fixture of the season on 25 October.
Trainer Paul Nicholls, who is based in Ditcheat, Shepton Mallet, said: “It’s one of the driest summers I’ve ever known,” which is preventing some horses from running.
“We’ve had to water pretty much every day throughout the summer,” said Jeremy Martin from Salisbury Racecourse.
“The summer months are our core period of racing, so with racing every two weeks we had to keep putting water on the racecourse to keep it in a good condition, otherwise it would get too firm,” Martin added.
“This is the most watering that we’ve had to do in my 26 years of being here.”
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Salisbury is fortunate to have a license allowing them to extract water from a 400ft borehole connected to an aquifer, meaning they have been able to continue watering throughout the summer.
Despite this, Martin says there is “nothing better than natural rain” for keeping the course healthy and that not all courses are able to do the same:
“Racecourses up and down the country, however they get their water, have had to do everything they can to keep their ground safe,” he said.
Ryall said it had been “one of the most extreme summers in terms of weather”, leaving Wincanton’s course “pretty hard” and unfit for racing.
“The forecast is changing and rain looks to be on the horizon, finally, so we’re just taking every week as it comes and doing our best rain dance, really,” he said.
Wincanton Racecourse cancelled its first meet last October as well as two others in March year due to the lack of rain.
Ryall said the track probably needs 200-250mm of steady rain over the next six to eight weeks to avoid cancelling it again.
While that would be higher than average, Ryall said it would not be unheard of, noting that 160mm of rain fell in September 2024.
He said it would be a “massive disappointment” to lose any fixtures, but especially the 25 October fixture, which is the course’s charity race day.
The racecourse does have access to a small reservoir, but this only refills when it rains, and it would be very costly to expand it or build a new one, he said.
“If we felt this was going to become a regular occurrence every summer, we have options to start the season later.”
Nicholls said: “The ground is completely burnt up, no grass at all about, it’s been very dry, it’s been a challenge.
“The winter horses aren’t going to be ready to run normally until the middle of October,” he said.
“The first big jump meet of the season is Chepstow in early October, they’ll need some water soon,” he said.
But he said there is hope because of the rain forecast for September.
“Once it rains, and the ground is safe, we’ll go, but if it’s not safe, we won’t be running anywhere.
He added that although the horses have adapted to the hot weather “really well” it has been a challenge to feed them due to the lack of grass.
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Source: sports.yahoo.com
