Open racing – or technically ‘invitation racing’ – returns to Towcester on Saturday after two blank weekends.
The second round of the Totepool Premier League features four £500 events over three different distances. While the track have still be able to field open class runners in the graded races – last week’s A1 featured three Derby runners – racing manager Chris Page yearns for more opens.
He said: “I have always wanted to stage them, and I know some of the trainers are a bit frustrated, but BAGS are not keen if they don’t think they are competitive enough. As it transpires, the last four favourites were beaten anyway, but BAGS’ concerns certainly won’t stop us staging them. Put it this way, if Droopys Nidge was available for an open, we would run it, even if it was on the non-BAGS section of the meeting.”
The track have also been forced into a re-think of their surface preparation policy after a rash of races on slow going.
Page said: “We were caught out by the change in the weather but check out the going recently and you will see that we are on top of it. Basically as the weather warmed up, the efficiency of the drainage system caught us out. We are putting 30,000 gallons of water on the track each day but we are very exposed here and it dries so quickly. Jeff Sealey is on the case now and we are monitoring it very closely. In the cooler weather the natural moisture in the air makes all the difference.”
The Feb 14 litter out of Freedom Emma, highlighted by Page last month are already accumulating race wins. Tonto Tornado was the first to trouble the judge last Saturday with an A7 second time out in 29.33. Interestingly, there were representatives of all three of Emma’s litters on the same card.
