No runners were declared for a 10-furlong novice race on Saturday's card at Newbury Racecourse in England, reports BBC, despite 13 horses being entered in the contest. According to trainer Ralph Beckett, president of the National Trainers' Federation, the lack of declarations was not an organized action by the NTF, but horsemen were admittedly frustrated by the race's purse.
“£6,500 (about US$7,700) for a novice race at a Grade One track on a Saturday is a disgrace,” Beckett told BBC. “Furthermore, when the race conditions were published a month ago, it was published at £5,300 (about US$6,280). It was only upped on Monday and that was too little, too late.
“Horsemen are independent people and are fed up with the derisory prize money on offer in general – and in this instance, they decided to vote with their feet.”
The other six races on the Saturday card have combined purses of £400,000 (about US$474,722), including the featured Super Sprint Stakes worth £200,000 (about US$237,361).
“We have to run the racecourse on a sustainable basis and we have committed to return to overall 2019 prize money levels this year, despite having lost £2.4m in 2020 and barely breaking even last year as a result of Covid,” Julian Thick, chief executive of Newbury Racecourse, told BBC. “Given this background, it's disappointing this has happened and at a time when the industry needs to pull together.”
Read more at BBC.
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