Tonight’s meeting at Oxford has been cancelled due to the unsafe condition of the track with trainer John Mullins not certain that his two runners in the second semi final of the Bet365 Challenge Cup will be able to take their places in the re-arranged slot on Saturday night.
John said: “I’m a bit irritated to be honest. I don’t have a problem that the meeting is cancelled. If I’d turned up and the track was two seconds slow, I wouldn’t run them anyway. My issue is that I haven’t been consulted. I was told that the meeting had been cancelled and the semis would be run on Monday. That would have been difficult enough.
“But then I was told they would be on Saturday. I have long standing plans arranged for Saturday that will be almost impossible to break. This isn’t the first time that this type of thing has happened, and I am not having a go at Oxford in particular. But once again it is the trainers who seem to be considered last.”
James Chalkley, Head of Racing for Oxford’s parent company responded to a call explaining John’s concerns, and then returned a call with the following response.
He said: “I spoke to Paul in the racing office who confirmed he had called John to say that the meeting was off. At that stage, we were looking at Monday. The problem is, we want the final to go ahead on the 23rd which is a gala meeting, so that necessitated that we go on Saturday. John was called back but the call went to voicemail.
“It is very unfortunate, but I have since called John and assured him that we will always try to consult with trainers, though obviously it can be a bit complicated when dealing with a number of trainers, each with their own sets of problems and preferences. Hopefull John will be able to re-arrange for Saturday night.”
