Unlock Sandown's potential but don't tamper with its natural assets

The first Kempton jumps meeting in the wake of news regarding its intended closure was rather underwhelming. The first Sandown fixture to follow the announcement similarly failed to ignite. None of that, however, means one should be killed off or that the other is on its knees.

When the Jockey Club revealed a desire to terminate racing at Kempton it needed to sweeten the pill.

It did so in part by declaring a wish, outside of any Kempton cash, to invest £400 million over ten years, although it failed to make clear this merely represented, to all intents and purposes, a continuation of existing spend. The proposed Newmarket all-weather track has, not surprisingly, gone down like a lead balloon with almost everyone aside from some who train in Newmarket. That places greater importance on the reinvention of Sandown as the means of sugarcoating Kempton’s demise.