No plans for summer evening races to split despite Chelmsford call

The BHA believes there is no need to let evening races be divided during the summer turf season despite a meeting at Chelmsford this month attracting 163 entries for its seven all-weather races, which led to the track's manager raising the issue with the BHA.

Fraser Garrity, manager of the Essex track, questioned whether the rule was "past its sell-by date" but the BHA said it had no plans to change its policy.

"There is so much more opportunity for horses in the middle of the summer," said Paul Johnson, BHA head of racing development.

"That's the reason we don't allow divisions in evening races as there isn't the horse population at that time of year with turf racing in the afternoon and evening.

"If you allow ten races at Chelmsford it will be taking horses away from other races."

Johnson also pointed out that in the two and a half years since Chelmsford opened only four races would have had to be divided on the 16-runner limit.

"You're talking about eight to ten horses missing a race," added Johnson, who discussed the situation only a few weeks ago with the authority's racing group.

Chelmsford's meeting on July 7 ended up not being oversubscribed with 73 running in the seven races.

Garrity said: "We made the observation to the BHA that we wondered why exactly there was the rule that says races can’t be divided at evening meetings during afternoon and evening turf racing and what the rationale for that rule historically was.

“Because we had such good entries we thought there was a chance of a division and potentially if the rule was past its sell-by date. With the floodlights we'd want the chance to be able to run those divisions.

"It seems that if there's the demand it would be nice if the rule was flexible enough to meet that demand. I think it's win-win for the industry as the demand is satisfied, there's extra media rights income and extra betting product."