Kevin Boothby is not a happy man.
A series of cancelled meetings at all four of his tracks has led to regret, disappointment, frustration, and anger, and that isn’t just among the owners and trainers who have spent wasted journeys to cancelled meetings. Boothby himself is seething.
He said: “I am furious at staff who haven’t done their jobs. But I’m also angry with people who are queueing up to have a dig at me. Much of it is out of ignorance.
“This weather has been exceptional and people who have never prepared a track in their lives don’t understand the difference between -3 and -8.
“We’ve had exceptionally cold weather that has got into the track and made it impossible to race safely. That is life. You cannot race in temperatures like we have experienced at Towcester, no matter how good you think you are as a groundsman, and trust me, I have plenty of experience of that.”
The low point – not just in the temperatures – was on Sunday. After a delay in starting the meeting, the traps failed to function, almost resulting in serious injury to the runners, either in being hit by the trap fronts, or running into the boxes which couldn’t be removed from the circuit.
There can be no excuses for that surely?
Boothby replied: “No, I am not defending that in any way. As an owner who cares about the dogs, I would be furious if one of my dogs was involved. And trust me, that will never happen again.
“We have resolved that issue. For legal reasons I can’t go into the details, but there was clearly negligence and the buck stops with me. I am not hiding from that or defending it.
“Basically, people didn’t do their jobs. They weren’t on site early enough. A piece was equipment was left out in freezing temperatures and shouldn’t even have been in use. It was used as a temporary back-up, when it shouldn’t have been.
“So to make it clear – the failure of the traps was not mechanical. It was human error and we have put robust structures in place to ensure that it never happens again. In addition there has been a staff restructure following the incident to ensure staff are competent in their duties.
“But what really sickens me is the double standards. Hove had a massive problem with their traps recently. Nothing gets said. Romford has a problem. Doesn’t get a mention. Something happens at one of my tracks and they are queuing up to put the boot in.”
What about Oxford?
“What about it? We had two problems at Oxford. One was brought about by the hare pit collapsing. We couldn’t have anticipated that and have arranged for Gavin Smith to build a second hare pit.
“There was never a problem with the traps at Oxford. I said all along that the hare was being driven too slow and I stand by that. Since then, there has been no issue.”
What about the going?
“What about the going? It was 1.60 slow on Saturday after Romford was 1.50 slow for the six bends on Friday. Does anybody have a pop at Romford?
“What are you supposed to do? If it had been -3, we could have salted and watered. But not when the temperature has been down at -8. We cancelled the meeting on Friday and found a small window to get the track as well as we could on Saturday.
“Don’t tell me that I don’t know how to prepare a track, I was personally doing it at Henlow for years. On Sunday Henlow was -20 when some of the other ‘perfect’ tracks were -60 or more. Let’s see what happens at some of these tracks now the thaw is setting in.”
Would you accept that the pneumatic traps have been the single biggest cause of upset at Towcester, but you continue to persevere with them?
“No, lots of track have pneumatic traps and personally I hate them. But look at all the tracks who have pneumatic traps. They never get mentioned. This was the first incident involving our traps in a long time and I repeat, there was no mechanical error. It was human error.
“We have two sets of old fashioned spring loaded traps, with the slanted fronts, that are being renovated. They will be in place for next year’s Derby.
“If people still aren’t happy, they can always take the Derby back to Nottingham.”
