TIME TO BIN THE P WORD
I WAS thinking of telling you a story — a made-up story — about my Uncle Charlie.
There he was, going to the doctor for just a ‘precautionary’ check-up, and now the poor old soul’s no longer with us.
But then I decided that, given the events of the past 10 months, a fictional tale about a non-existent family member’s fabricated demise would not be appropriate.
What the anecdote would have done, though, was provide me with an illustration as to how the word ‘precautionary’ can often be used in a ‘nothingto-worry-about’ sense — only for the reality to turn out very different indeed.
Which brings me to the thorny issue of ‘precautionary’ inspections.
All too often, a clerk of the course calls such a check and, while hopes rise that racing will proceed as planned, the fixture falls by the wayside. You know the drill by now — you do loads of work on the form in the belief the card will go ahead, only to wake up and find out that you’ve wasted your time.
I have Sandown and Epsom clerk Andrew rew Cooper (right) to thank for educating ng me as to the British
Horseracing
Authority directives on ‘precautionaries’.
If the forecast is bad — but the conditions are raceable — then, according to the British Horseracing Authority guidelines, the ‘P’ word should be added so that we know where we stand.
That I was ignorant of the procedures is not the rule’s fault — and all seems pretty straightforward when it comes to water or snow.
If the track is raceable but heavy rain or snow is forecast, then the inspection is ‘precautionary’. If there’s already water or snow on the ground, whatever the weather people say, then it’s an inspection, plain and simple. But what happens when frost is the issue?
During a cold winter, winte sub-zero temperat temperatures account for a hefty chunk of cancellations, a and it’s this area thatm that makes a mockery of th the ‘precautio ‘precautionary’ guidelin guideline. Un Unless a ven venue is in the midst of a Beast
From The East-style weather front — during which the terrain will remain hard as iron for days on end — the surface will very likely be fit for racing during the afternoon.
It follows that the inspection will be precautionary, even if predictions are for a record freeze. Frost covers — why are they always ‘deployed’ rather than simply being ‘laid down’? — serve to muddy the waters still further. With groundsheets, the course is raceable and the inspection precautionary, but only because the covers have been allowed to limit artificially the damage done by Mother Nature.
If your brain hurts having got this far, then you have my sympathy.
The ‘precautionary’ guideline is no doubt a well-meaning act on the part of our sport’s legislators that is designed to give those interested an additional piece of information ahead of a race meeting.
But all it has ended up doing is to tie everybody up in knots.
Why don’t we just hold a common-or-garden inspection when the action is imperilled by the elements and leave it at that?
But, just as with mythical Uncle Charlie, the ‘P’ word lulls us into thinking all is well, when there’s bad news just around the corner.