SA Local Racing Blackout – Heat Wave In Britain

In the absence of three local race meetings in August, the die hard SA punter is looking for alternatives and the UK races probably offer the most likely solution.

One of our staunchest racers tweeted on his Facebook page earlier this week:

So came Monday and no local race. I checked the websites of the 3 operators to see if they have any message for me as a customer. I must say?

I imagined if Pick n Pay closed for a day, there would be signs the week before, news the day before, a sign on the door saying ‘We’re open tomorrow, please come back, sorry the inconveniences …”.

The Sporting Post explains: “Wolverhampton is perhaps the best choice”. Sigh.

And KZN, it’s usually your race day, all your site has under Latest News is comments for Turffontein tomorrow 9th August.

Nobody ever calls anyone about anything, so nothing ever gets better.

Thousands of horses eat, many thousands of people work in industry and are paid; and overall the response was racing load shedding… a local rolling blackout.

The whole game goes on and on, so the extra meeting is a marginal cost, just the direct cost because all other overheads have been paid for whether you’re racing or not.

Apparently, this was all planned a while ago before Bortz slipped the lightning rod into the patient. Maybe it should have been put in the doctor and not in the patient. This is hopefully the last innovation and transparency from 4Racing, how much can everyone take? Do I look biased? No &^%*!

So we look back to the UK on Wednesday and Britain had its driest July since 1935 and the circuits are bracing for a second heatwave, racingpost.com reported.

Salisbury will host its tent meeting on Wednesday and Thursday and has so far had just five per cent of its average July rainfall with no rain in August.

“I’ve been here for 22 years and I don’t remember it being like this before. The last time we were really well soaked was on June 5th when we had 14mm,” said Jeremy Martin, the Salisbury track secretary.

“We had to irrigate a hell of a lot, but the track looks nice and green and is good to firm at the moment. Without the ability to irrigate the track from a borehole, we would be in a pretty desperate state. Like everyone, we were desperate for some rain. We have already taken some precautions. We will have frozen water troughs in the unsaddle area and we will have more race personnel lined up to do things like pass water buckets and scrapers alongside the few cooling fans.”

Temperatures are also expected to rise ahead of the Hungerford Stakes in Newbury.

“Although we’re watering every day, with temperatures where they are and no rain in the forecast alongside the types of races we have, we’re not envisioning huge fields. We had light rain on the last day of July, but it didn’t even hit the 1mm mark,” said Keith Ottesen, Newbury employee.

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) issued a statement saying: “The BHA will continue to monitor conditions at all tracks due to stage meetings and will work closely with teams at each venue to ensure all necessary precautions are taken . The industry has weathered the challenges posed well and continued to host events safely while taking action to cancel impacted meetings as the Met Office’s first-ever ‘Red’ extreme heat warning was issued.”