When Lautaro covered the Towcester 500m course in 29.09 on Sunday afternoon, the happiest men in the sports were Evan Herbert, John Porter and Patrick Janssens. The most relieved was Kevin Boothby. The most disappointed were the army of Twitter trolls for whom Towcester bashing has become an obsession – though they have had plenty to work with in the last month – writes Floyd Amphlett.
There can be little doubt that despite some very financial low points at Henlow in the early days, December 2022 will be a month that Kevin Boothby will want to forget above all others.
At the centre was the seemingly jinxed 2022 RPGTV Puppy Derby.
The question is, were the track guilty of negligence, how much was down to bad luck, or possibly something more sinister?
The answer is ‘some and some’.
Cast your mind back to the first round on Sunday December 4 and all looked fine. Romeo Hotshot clocked the fastest first round win in 29.41 on normal going.
The problems started a week later, in fact on the Saturday night. The cold weather had set in Towcester cancelled, Romford was abandoned halfway through.
So Sunday’s second round was duly called off, though there was some talk among trainers of not being kept informed at the earliest opportunity, bearing in mind Damien Matthews was travelling from Newry.
It was decided to stage the second round on the following Thursday. A quick glance at the weather forecast suggested that was always going to be a bad call and so it proved.
So onto Sunday 18th which was also called off in bizarre circumstances. The meeting was delayed due to a frozen track. When racing finally got underway, the traps failed.
It was entirely avoidable and was due to human error. When the airlines had frozen prior to the previous meeting, a portable compressor had been brought in as a temporary measure. Instead of reverting to the main system, the compressor, which had been left out in frozen weather, fused and failed.
Kevin Boothby takes most things in his stride but it would be fair to say that at that point the promoter really lost his shit with various repercussions.
By the time that the second round finally took place on Friday December 23rd, the track was in great order with Deelish Frankie clocking 29.26 on ‘normal’ going. The Puppy Derby though was ruined. Only 16 of the 24 entries went to traps.
Incredibly, there was more to come.
The semi finals took place four days later and in the first qualifier, the traps opened prematurely. It was discovered that the mechanism for keeping the trap fronts secure had been loosened.
After a ballot to determine the three qualifiers the final finally took place on January 2nd. At this point fate decided to twist the knife. A horrible first bend collision saw two of the runners knocked over and the race was stopped in the interests of safety.
Thankfully there were no serious injuries but connections were rightfully weary and decided to divide the pot.
So to return to the main theme, where does the blame lie?
In the first instance, it is clear that regular maintenance had not been up to standard and for that the buck stops with the captain of the ship.
Although it wasn’t directly responsible for any of the Puppy Derby incidents, a failure to clear the hare rail of tons of sand has led to numerous hare issues over time including the burning out of a motor.
So while Savana Ruinart was on her way to Shelbourne for the Night Of Stars, her owner was part of a team meticulously shovelling away years’ worth of sand from under the hare rail.
The result has been instantaneous with the hare running a lot more smoothly to a point that the hare driver has had to learn to compensate with the trolley shooting way past its original stopping point at the pick-up.
So what else does Kevin Boothby hold his hand up to?
He said: “I shouldn’t have persevered with the pneumatic starts. I spent £50K on five sets of traps and I wish I hadn’t. They should work, they are the obvious way forward. But there are a lot of working parts and they are more prone to human error. So we are going back to the old method using solenoids and springs.
“I should also have listened to some of the trainers regarding getting the boxes with the curved fronts. I think the dogs are a lot more stable in them. The new ones will be the sloped fronts”
Although a date has been scheduled, the several times bitten promoter won’t go public with it at this stage.
Some of the Towcester issues are clearly related to location. It is the most isolated track in Britain, and will always be vulnerable to extreme weather, particularly wind, snow and frost.
There was some bad luck too, most notably in the Puppy Derby Final. Of all the races in which two runners would be knocked over, it was by far the most high profile.
But what of anything more sinister?
During the course of the last month, tractor tyres have been deflated. The tyre in the hare pit, which creates the friction to pull the hare wire has also been left flat. Then there was the issue with the mechanism on the traps.
The promoter declined to go public with his thoughts, but trainer Peter Harnden, who was brought up on a dog track had no doubts.
He said: “You will always get the odd thing going wrong, but this goes way, way beyond that. There is definitely something not right.”
Clearly somebody has an issue. Because while failed mechanics can be blamed on negligence or neglect, they don’t explain how someone hacked into the track’s Twitter Stream last week and sent out some abusive Tweets.
Anyone who has known Kevin Boothby for any period of time will understand that the last month has knocked him badly.
He sees himself as a caring dog man and he has been through all the stages of irritation, anger and brain crushing frustration. He also feels that he has been treated unfairly. Most of his social media critics have never met him though some of the vilest comments have come from people who have been regularly been welcomed to the Boothby Suite.
He said: “There are issues going on with traps all the time (while this article was being written, there was a void race at Swindon – the 11.58, due to slow opening traps). But nothing ever gets said.
“I know that a dog of Patrick Janssens’ picked up a cut on his head in an open race (at a different track) last week. There are void races all over, it is going on all the time, but nothing gets reported. I will hold my hands up for what we have got wrong, but why only us?
“I hear trainers saying that they will race at my track again when they think the traps are safe! Really? These are the same trainers who are racing on tracks where the injury rates are many times higher than at Towcester. Is that not double standards?
“Are these same trainers who won’t race because of the pneumatic traps at Towcester going to stop racing at other tracks with pneumatics too?
“Look at our record. I have been doing this a long time at Henlow and never had problems. We’ve never lost a dog at Suffolk Downs. Oxford has made a brilliant start because we were able to set up a system that works from the outset.
“We didn’t have that opportunity at Towcester but we have some really good young lads here who have been trained across multiple skills, whether that is driving the hare, preparing the track or doing the photo finish.
“Look at two superb English Derbys with no void races. I can’t say nothing will go wrong again, because no one ever can. But our record for safety and welfare of the dogs is exemplary and I would stand it up against any other track you would like to put forward.”
As part of the new track preparation procedures, the bowser has been taken out of commission and the circuit will now be hand watered, something Peter Harnden describes as “a game changer”.
But we leave the final word to John Mullins who was trialling runners before Sunday’s meeting on a track with the telltale signature of preparation perfection, perfectly crisp paw prints.
John said: “I’ve had some wasted journeys in the last month which is irritating. But when all the fuss dies down, I know one thing, this is the best track in the country – by far.”
