Equestrian
“
There are twenty-six meetings scheduled for 2015, a
significant increase on the eighteen held in Tony Wootten’s day
The landing areas of all the jumps have been hollow cored, the cores raked up and rubber crumb swept into all the core holes, which has helped to decompact these areas
The team put in new road crossings, adding an additional crossing point on the back straight and renovating the others
October brought 4.5 inches of rain, but our ongoing programme of drainage and sand slitting improvements meant that the ground took it
” ... installing new drains, adding stone 100 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015
... and laying fibresand so that the courses remain dry after heavy rain
when the flat takes over until September and then the return of the jumps season in the autumn, it is a hectic programme. There are twenty-six meetings scheduled for 2015, a significant increase on the eighteen held in Tony Wootten’s day. There are some high class races too: over the jumps, the Cumberland Chase meeting has £20,000 prize funds for three races, whilst the Cumberland Plate flat fixture in June boasts a total prize fund of nearly £100,000 and attracts trainers and jockeys from all over the country, plus 5,000 racegoers. Crowds also flock to the summer Saturday music nights which can attract 10,000 people to see the likes of Madness and Wet Wet Wet after racing. Thankfully, the stage is now situated on hard standing - its original location on the chase course once caused the abandonment of a meeting due to waterlogging - and Carlisle can call on local farmers for overflow parking. Then there’s the climate to consider - the only abandonment of 2014 came after six inches of rain fell in February. Thomas adds; “October brought 4.5 inches
of rain, but our ongoing programme of drainage and sand slitting improvements
meant that the ground took it.” “There are two clerks of the course who
share Carlisle between them, Andrew Tulloch, who is based at Aintree Racecourse, and Kirkland Tellwright, who is based at Haydock Park Racecourse. Andrew reckons we are always two or three degrees colder than Aintree, even in the summer.” “As a small course, we can’t justify
covering the whole track, but we do protect take-offs and landings, crossings and shaded areas.” To provide good ground for the flat
season, a Briggs irrigation system is deployed, with a 16m Briggs boom and two hosereels. Twin rain guns are used on less accessible parts of the course, including a new twin gun for the early part of the jumps season to negotiate the bypassing areas around the chase fences which can’t be reached with a boom. Thomas has a strategy to tackle the
inevitably time consuming nature of irrigation; “We have five people who are trained to use the irrigator so it can be done in shifts. No-one ever has to do the whole twelve hours it takes to water the track, which can start at 6.00am.” The last four years has seen a continual
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