Racing and so much to enjoy this Bank Holiday
IT’S one of the highlights of the region’s leisure calendar, but how do you prepare a racecourse for an event like this month’s Nottinghamshire Sports Day?
The answers come from Roderick Duncan. Although the big day, in partnership with the Nottingham Post, will draw families to meet sports stars and have a go at a range of sporting activities, at the heart of the action will be a seven-race card on the Southwell track.
As Arena Racing Company’s Regional Clerk of the Course (North), Roderick is one of the low-profile ringmasters of the unique circus that is British horse racing.
Clerks of the course are responsible for ensuring that racing takes place, on time, with due regard to the safety of horses, jockeys, racecourse workers and paying public.
“Most of my work is done before the gates open,” says Roderick in his office next to the Southwell grandstand.
“This time last year we started planning our racing programme. We have 53 meetings this year. Later we make any improvements and adjustments to the programme and make all the necessary steps for each meeting.”
It’s been a testing summer for the clerks to Britain’s 50-odd courses. The drought has required them to water their turf to provide going that is safe to race on ... but there has always been the chance that a heavy watering will be followed by a prolonged cloudburst, perhaps to the annoyance of trainers with runners best suited to firm ground.
Meteorological gambling won’t be necessary on August 27. While 19 of Southwell’s fixtures are National Hunt cards, using the turf jumps track, the Nottinghamshire Sports Raceday racing will be over the all-weather course - the only one in the country composed of Fibresand, whose “give” tends to favour horses with form on soft turf going. But that is not to say that no work goes into the surface. Before racing it is watered, the moisture helping to bind the sand and fibres together. The course is also watered, chained, harrowed and rolled during the halfhours between each race.
“It’s one of our better all-weather fixtures,” says Roderick of the £64,000
bank holiday card sponsored by bookies Toals.com. The feature race is a five-furlong handicap with a purse of £20,000.
While owners and trainers are weighing up their sprinters’ chances of winning that prize, the Southwell team will be ensuring that the right staff are there on race day.
While the British Horseracing Authority, the sport’s regulatory body, supplies starters, the judge, the stewards and the clerk to the scales - whose responsibilities include ensuring jockeys depart and return with their allocated weight- it is down to the course to engage the doctors and vets that must always be on duty.
The racecourse’s six ground staff always have plenty to do, and for turf fixtures they can rely on the help of the three greenkeepers from the adjoining golf club, whose front nine holes are to be found in the centre of the racecourse.
Also arriving on each race day will be the bookies who have pitches in front of the stands - perhaps 12 or 14 to take on Nottinghamshire Sports Day’s expected 2,500 punters - and the staff of the Tote, the pool betting organisation. Throw in everything from security staff to a weighing room physiotherapist and anything up to 50 people could be at work on the course while the public enjoys the bank holiday.
Security is topical given recent drunken brawling at courses including Goodwood and Epsom, but racegoers at family-friendly Southwell seem able to handle their beer. “We’re lucky,” says Roderick. “Our crowds tend to be mature.”
Roderick Duncan, 57, from Tuxford, has worked with horses for most of his life. Before entering the racing industry he was a professional huntsman with the Grove and Rufford Hunt. With experience of the point-to-point events that are part of the hunt calendar, he re-trained initially with a view to becoming a relief clerk.
But Arena must have liked what they saw because he soon found himself in a permanent role - and was later promoted to the regional position, in charge not only at Southwell but also at Yarmouth, Sedgefield, Newcastle (which also has an all-weather course) and Doncaster, home of the St Leger.
“The secret is having a good team around you, which I have,” he insists. “A clerk of the course is only as good as his team.”
On August 27, his work will not be done when the gates ping open for the opening heat. Bank holidays are heavy with fixtures and the requirements of television and betting shop relays mean races around the country need to start bang on time, to avoid finishes coinciding. His eyes will be constantly on his watch.
Southwell Racecourse, on the banks of the River Greet, opened in 1898, replacing a course closer to the Minster town.
It was father-and-son team Ron and Richard Muddle who turned an unfashionable country course into one of Britain’s first all-weather venues, helping to guarantee racing during the winter weather that can disrupt the turf calendar. It is also a weddings, conference and banqueting venue.
Current owner Arena is now investing in floodlights, enabling Southwell to stage teatime and evening fixtures this winter as well as afternoon cards.
Once the last horses are in their boxes and the crowds have returned to the car parks or the platforms of Rolleston Station, Roderick Duncan can afford to take his eyes off his watch. He’ll then be thinking about Sedgefield the following Thursday and Newcastle the day after that.
Lots of responsibility and lots of mileage ... “but there is nothing in my life I would change,” he says.
Nottinghamshire Sports Day, in partnership with the Nottingham Post, is at Southwell Racecourse, Rolleston, on the bank holiday, August 27. Gates open 11.30am, first race 1.50pm. £15 in advance, children free.