Tracks can learn a few tricks from the Swedes

13 April 2012

With Wolverhampton the latest all-weather course to belie its name and fail an inspection today, Britain's sand-based tracks could take a grain of comfort from the way that they cope with Arctic conditions at Sweden's main racecourse.

At Taby in Stockholm in winter the temperatures often plunge to below minus 10 degrees centigrade, but their meetings hardly ever fall victim to freezing conditions and are only occasionally called off because of heavy snowfalls.

So when Taby racecourse manager, Sten Bugge, heard that Wolverhampton had bit the dust after two nights of minus 13c, several inches of snow and heavy rain, leaving it patchy with crusty parts at the edge of their Fibre-sand surface he offered some advice.

He said: "When it is very cold, what we do is harrow and harrow day and night. We also mix in a lot of salt with the sand."

He pinpointed the critical times as when temperatures suddenly rise after a big freeze and the track does not always thaw out. And he was surprised that the Wolverhampton executive had reported problems in being unable to turn over the edges of their Fibresand mixture up against the rails.

"Our rails are slightly curved, so you can get the harrow close to the edge quite easily," he added.

Lingfield caused a furore among trainers, jockeys and racegoers when it was calledoff at the eleventh-hour on Saturday. But a scarcity of sand in the right places with "concrete" underfoot conditions, made it unsafe to proceed. Consequently, the plug was pulled amid much gnashing and grinding of teeth and calls for the heads of those responsible for the lack of foresight in not adequately checking the conditions until the starting time of the programme.

After a "trial by television" between Channel 4 guru, John McCririck, and Lingfield Clerk of the course, Fergus Cameron, Arena Leisure, which owns the track, announced its own inquiry and Arena finance director, Ian Penrose, pledged £300,000 for track refurbishment.

More immediately, Richard Linley, the Jockey Club's chief inspector of courses, was at the Surrey course today making his own investigation into why the system collapsed at the weekend. Cameron could also face a disciplinary committee inquiry for his part in the debacle.

Bugge was quick to advertise the benefits of Scandinavian all-weather racing. Taby has been staging it since 1965 and completely replace the sand every four or five years. Bugge pointed-out: "If horses are not able to race in England, we run every Sunday in the winter and are always pleased to welcome more runners!"

Yesterday Southwell, the third of Arena's 'sand' tracks raced with no difficulties at all, but that course had been the recipient of an Arena £300,000 course improvement injection last year. Lingfield has been racing on Equitrack for around eleven years with no major improvements to the surface and could face a massive "dig-up and replace" scheme in the future.

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