'We want people here seeing good horses' - Vetiver lands £100,000 feature on valuable Premier card

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There was a simple explanation offered by John Holmes, the founder of Chelmsford racecourse, when he was asked for the reasons the venue had put up £255,000 in prize-money on Sunday.

“Good racing is exciting for the public and putting on good prize-money is how we can achieve that,” Holmes said.

Sunday’s fixture featured eight races, with the Listed bet365 Queen Charlotte Fillies' Stakes being the main draw. With £100,000 in prize-money on offer, the only Listed contests with more or similar amounts offered to participants take place at Chester’s May meeting, Royal Ascot, the Ebor meeting at York and on Good Friday at Newcastle.

There is no doubting Chelmsford’s ambition, with work continuing on its six-figure investment into a turf course where floodlit racing should take place once everything is sorted.

However, the course has felt constantly frustrated by a perceived lack of acknowledgement of its efforts with the granting of extra fixtures.

Neil Graham, the track’s director of racing, said in January that the number of racedays given to Chelmsford was a “waste of the facility and a loss to racing”, while the BHA was threatened with legal action by the course last year over its “anticompetitive and unlawful” allocation of fixtures.

Holmes reiterated the desire for more racing on Sunday, and said: “We want to make sure it’s a good experience for racegoers. We don’t want racing behind closed doors, we want people to be here enjoying good racing and seeing good horses.

“We had Tripadvisor here recently and they scored us off the Richter Scale and put us in their top five racecourses in the country. It’s been a slow burner here, but we’ll keep doing what we’re doing and, if we do, I think we’ll be rewarded for it. 

“It's taking time for the BHA to realise this and we know we cannot compete if we don’t have the fixtures to do that. We need them to compete.”

The Queen Charlotte Fillies' Stakes was won by 12-1 shot Vetiver in the colours of Cheveley Park Stud, with the filly scoring for the second time at Listed level, having also done so at Carlisle last year.

The victory marked a return to form for Vetiver after she finished down the field in the Lincoln at Doncaster and the Chartwell Fillies' Stakes at Lingfield, where her rider David Probert felt circumstances had gone against her.

“She was badly drawn at Lingfield and didn’t have a lot of cover that day either,” Probert said. “It was a much different test for her today and it suited her better.

"The turning seven furlongs seemed to particularly suit her and I was really pleased with how she picked up for me. It’s great to get another win for her at this level and Cheveley Park have a lovely filly to breed from when they decide to do so.”

Road to victory

Mountain Road took his record to three wins and a second from four starts at Chelmsford with a comfortable victory in the 2m handicap.

Trained by David Simcock, Mountain Road was worth more than his half-length winning margin, having found more when challenged late by Abraaj.

Mountain Road was following up his win at Newmarket last month and did so by coming from off the pace rather than making all the running.

“I was very pleased with that, and he went again when he was challenged at the end of the race,” Simcock said. “He won in a different style to how he did at Newmarket last time, which was good too.

"There’s a very valuable two-mile handicap at Newbury in two weeks, so that’s where he’ll go next.”

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