WERE THE FENCES AT HAYDOCK TOO BIG?

IN days of yore, Haydock’s fences were always regarded by jockeys as the biggest outside its near-neighbour Aintree — the drops on them meant trainers often used Haydock as a schooling ground for potential Grand National runners.

A few years ago, Haydock switched the jump track with the Flat course, moving the fences to the inside. It made it a much sharper track, the portable fences were like up-turned dandy brushes and it became likened to a glorified point-to-point course.

In keeping with its status as a Grade One track, clerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright, who has been somewhere between a rock and a hard place on this, sought to build up the fences again.

Obviously, fence-building is an art not a science, so he was probably right in saying that the fences were the same size as last year. But they were clearly stiffer, which can be down to any number of reasons, including the quality of the birch.

Although all five horses in the Betfair Chase jumped without mishap — Nicky Henderson was inclined to apportion some blame for Might Bite’s performance on using too much energy in the air — seven of the 20 starters in the other chases failed to jump round.

The problem will be redressed, with Tellwright announcing that, in all likelihood, the tops of the fences would be reduced in thickness, which should make them “softer”.

While there is plenty of merit in Haydock having bigger fences, if everywhere else has smaller and softer obstacles, horses bring their bad habits with them when they come, which is why one or two jockeys described them as “unfair”.