Horse Racing: Newbury Covered in Glory

At last there has been some forward thinking from a racecourse attempting to beat the frost with Newbury importing enough felt covers more usually used for protecting strawberries to ensure that their Friday and Saturday meetings went ahead.

After the rather farcical abandonment of the totesport Trophy meeting at the course three weeks ago, when the track was raceable an hour after the meeting was called off, Newbury's managing director Mark Kershaw and the clerk of the course, Richard Osgood, appeared determined not to lose out this time.

On Thursday, a circuit of the jumps course, almost two miles, was covered with white felt sheets, held down with sandbags, more than 2,000 in all. When the sheets were removed on Friday morning, the track was in good condition. But after a fine first day's racing, the covers had to go back on before the frost came down again if racing was to go ahead yesterday. That meant asking for volunteers from racegoers and around 50, including trainers Nicky Henderson and Hughie Morrison, and jockey Mick Fitzgerald, stayed behind for more than two hours to get the job done.

Newbury regulars John Noakes and Laurence Goodfellow were two of those helping out. Noakes lives locally and had been surprised, if not annoyed, that the Totesport meeting had been lost but was keen to add his support to the enterprise shown this time around and said he was on the course until 'after seven o'clock when it was pitch dark'.

Goodfellow, apparently held in some regard as a trencherman, joked that the couple of hours not spent in the pub would do wonders for his waistline, although he was slightly put out that the course provided no refreshment for those giving up their time, quipping: 'I think we should have had some fish and chips washed down with beer from the Hogshead stall for our efforts.'

Last night, many racing people who saw the thrilling dead-heat finish to Newbury's big race, the Vodafone Gold Cup, must have been toasting Osgood and Kershaw, who revealed that the cost of the exercise was only £12,000, £8,000 for materials and £4,000 for labour. Those expenses would have been greater without the volunteers but for each race televised by Satellite Information Services, a racecourse receives a £4,250 payment so the maths suggest that others should be contacting Kershaw to find out where he obtained the covers from.

Perhaps Taunton and Ludlow, who were forced to call off their Thursday meetings, will be interested. With those cards gone, I ventured to the all-weather meeting at Lingfield, but not before dropping in at Kempton Park. Kempton is the venue for a popular market on Thursdays but I was not after a bargain barbecue set or a new shower curtain. The reason for my visit was to see Ouija Board limber up for her trip to Dubai with a gallop on the course's new Polytrack surface.

Ed Dunlop's mare has an assignment in the Sheema Classic on 25 March, the very day that Kempton reopens to the public for racing. She fairly bounced off the surface as she breezed by her work companion in a piece of work over a mile. It was not altogether surprising that this four-time Group One winner was able to brush aside the Lingfield maiden winner, Cnoc Na Gaoithe, but she did look in the rudest of health and she should go well in her next assignment on the turf course at Nad Al Sheba.

Kempton will be the third course using Polytrack in this country after Lingfield and Wolverhampton and the surface is also being laid at many tracks in the USA. At Lingfield, there is little, if any, kickback but as Ouija Board forged to the front a furlong and a half from the Kempton winning post, she did deliver a bit of sand in her stablemate's face. With Cheltenham only nine days away I have already had a look at the first race on Tuesday week, the Supreme Novices' Hurdle. While it is not easy to say what is going to win, I am going to oppose ante-post favourite Sweet Wake. He may have been an impressive winner on his two runs over hurdles but Sweet Wake has not had to battle yet. It should be a different story at Cheltenham and at 11-4, he makes no appeal.