The controversy surrounding the move by Haydock Park to 'beef up' its chastised portable fences without consultation and forwarning for those who would be directly affected, evokes memories of that Charlie Hall meeting at Wetherby staged over thirty years ago.
In recent memory, Wetherby was the subject of examination by the authorities owing to a spike in the number of equine deaths at the track. This followed the reopening after the reconfiguration due to the widening of the A1 which runs past the final bend. But that was more the racing surface and less the obstacles.
For the older generation, Wetherby was about the demanding test of jumping the course provided. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's the West Yorkshire venue was known for having a steeplechase course with fences amongst the most testing in the country. It was a badge of honour that, allied with the good quality horses the course was able to reel in, made it one of the most applauded venues on the whole National Hunt circuit.
Prior to the 1987 Charlie Hall meeting, Wetherby hosted its traditional opening card of the campaign on Wednesday October 14th with three races over the steeplechase course. The first was a six-runner staying handicap won by Arthur Stephenson's Handy Trick. There was a sole faller in the Peter Easterby trained Jimbrook, who went at the first.
The second race over fences on the card was the Bobby Renton Memorial, a novice chase that at the time regularly attracted some useful prospects. This renewal was won by Josh Gifford's Yeoman Broker. Of the twelve runners, there were three fallers and an unseated. The fallers included G.W.Richards Supreme Novices Hurdle winner Tartan Tailor and Toby Balding's former Schweppes Gold Trophy winner Neblin.
It was nothing more than par for the course and when the final chase race on the card was run, a two and a half mile handicap that also had twelve runners with three falling and two unseating, it just confirmed that the fences were up to their customary testing standard.
Then on to the two day Charlie Hall meeting which began on Friday October 30th. This first day had three chase races. The first a three-mile handicap chase won by Arthur Stephenson's The Wilk who was piloted by the lanky 7 lb claimer Alan Merrigan who would later lose his life in tragic circumstances.
Of the fifteen runners, five fell individually and one unseated rider, an eyebrow-raising total given that these were experienced runners and the ground, as with the previous meeting, was described as 'Good'. The second of the three races over fences was a two-mile mares novices chase won by John Webber's very useful Auntie Dot. Six of the seventeen runners came to grief, and a seventh brought down.
The last chase on the card, a two-mile handicap, saw two of the seven runners fall and a further unseat its rider. The day closed with plenty of chatter over the bolstered obstacles. It seemed as though the course wanted to confirm a cult notoriety. A sort of,' we are Wetherby, ggrrr. '
The following day's card was staged on ground described as 'Good to Soft'. The opening race, the two and a half mile Philip Cornes Nickel Alloy Novices Chase was a calamity and is in folklore for the wrong reasons. The race eventually went to the Ken Oliver trained High Edge Grey but only four of the thirteen runners completed the course. There were eight individual fallers with one horse killed.
The stewards and jockeys met but the meeting continued. Jimmy Fitzgerald chose not to risk his 1985 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Forgive N' Forget in the Charlie Hall. The trainer described the fences as, "built straight up like brick walls".
The race was won by Peter Easterby's Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Cybrandian by a distance from two other finishes who were hunted around from the beginning. The favourite Golden Friend was beaten in second when refusing at the last. Easterby described the fences as, " the worst I have ever seen."
Full recordings of both the aforementioned races are available on You Tube thanks to the tireless work of someone by the name of espmadrid who continues to build up a large online library on the channel which is a saviour for many of us whose collections of VHR's are mould ruined or similar.
It wasn't just the number of fallers, there is a visual impression of them taking some jumping with the horses landing steep. In the commentary on the novices chase Peter O'Sullivan casually refers to the trainers being anxious about some of the rebuilt fences. In the Charlie Hall, no reference at all is given.
The concluding race over fences on the day was a two and a half mile handicap won by the Arthur Stephenson trained Fergy Foster. There were three individual fallers in the eight-runner field
Imagine if this scenario had occurred now. Fences dolled off at the least, card maybe abandoned. Patronising television reporters repeatedly going on about the safety of horses. the commentator discussing the issue throughout the race. It's not to say the Wetherby fences at the start of that particular season created an issue that needed addressing, it's more to do with it being covered in proportion and with composure.
Wetherby clerk of the course Pat Firth promised to make adjustments to the fences by the next meeting in November. And for the remainder of the season, they continued to be a real test, claiming such as twice Grand National runner-up Durham Edition, along with Strands of Gold in the five-runner Rowland Meyrick, but the overall consensus was that they had been brought into the realms of acceptable risk.
Last Saturday's Haydock Park fences were clearly not in the range of severeness as the Wetherby obstacles at that infamous Charlie Hall meeting, but it was nonetheless a strange move by Tellwright whose language is normally in the modernist mode, typified by his observations when the old course was ripped up, when he said that if anyone in present times built a course and invented drop fences, it would be deemed outrageous.
Haydock Park made an embarrassing shambles of the race that already had taken three strong challengers away from the race formerly known as the Hennessey Gold Cup, including a previous winner. If they seek to revert to the times gone when the course was respected for providing a confronting but fair challenge, then they ought to look at returning it as near to as it once was instead of pulling some botched up job out of the hat without proper notice.
It appears though that they will play the percentages and return the portables back to nice and easy mode. It's the safe option for them, but one that quashes any revived hopes that traditionalists may have held.
image © Jonathan Hutchins - reused under creative commons licence
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