Equestrian
to fence mending. Left to right: Ross Craig, Alan Greening, John Tampsett, Mac Cornford and Mark Cornford
Sunny skies after the rain. The Plumpton team can return
You pay by the hour and by the man. After the Sussex National meeting, surface disruption wasn’t too bad, so we shaved the number down to eight
could fill the post. The answer was yes, provided he achieved the necessary British Horseracing Authority qualification, which involved going to other courses with officials to gain knowledge of their various roles. He had mountains of race day knowledge already, but needed to know about procedures with Clerk of the Scales, the starter, the stewards and much more. It was like an apprenticeship. An exam and an interview to judge his suitability followed and he was successful. He had attained the BHA standard. There is one area that he has yet to study
and pass to achieve full Clerk of the Course status, and that involves race planning, which means having a controlling say in what races are staged at the course and the conditions surrounding them. This currently falls to the CEO, but Mark plans to train for this soon and take up these duties too. He is anticipating this latest challenge with relish. Initially, he was head groundsman and Clerk of the Course on race day only, but gradually things have evolved and his Clerk duties have grown, though not in any way at the expense of his groundsmanship. The award at Haydock bears this out. In the past, Clerks had to be licensed. That
is no longer the case. The BHA simply recognises hard earned qualifications in either or both of two categories. Mark has one under his belt: the other is a matter of time.
Course work is very much in the hands of Mark and his grounds team. Currently there are three full-time staff and two part-time, each with two regular days work a week. Outside help is clear cut and only for
essential large-scale maintenance, either routine or annual. After each meeting, whole course divoting has, for the past three years, been conducted by specialists Sterling Services. Prior to that, Mark gathered an additional team of locals to do this repair work, but numbers available for this were dwindling and he had to be sure of getting a reliable extra workforce. Walking and forking is the technical term for the work and Mark assesses how big a team he needs once hoof damage has been properly surveyed. “You pay by the hour and by the man,” said Mark. “After the Sussex National meeting, surface disruption wasn’t too bad, so we shaved the number down to eight from Sterling. It can be twelve or more when the disruption is considerable. The sooner you can get this job done, the better.”
” Upside-down chain harrowing, behind two
quad bikes, is sometimes adopted at Plumpton to help with divoting and, if conditions are right, Mark says it’s a definite aid to post-racing repair, minimising the manual work needed. Mark tends not to add seed to divot mix in
January, waiting until after the first February meeting to start re-seeding, using Limagrain’s MM50 all-perennial ryegrass mix designed for winter surfaces, particularly racecourses. This is simply mixed, by shovel, into divot filling material. Mark says he still enjoys this job and still gets a kick out of seeing germination which, even in February, can be surprisingly quick. The non-racing period between May and
September is summer maintenance time and Mark’s rule is there are always two from the team on duty every day. One of the early summer tasks is to clear
as much of the plastic railing out of the way to ease mowing. Cutting is done using a 4- metre Votex front-mounted topper and the whole course can be trimmed comfortably in a day. National Hunt courses are permitted to cut between 4-6 inches, but Mark opts for the lower level and never cuts the day before a meeting because he likes a bit of
A reciprocating arrangement
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It all adds up to an arrangement we believe you will really like. PC0215
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info@classen.uk.com www.classen.uk.com
Built To Use and Designed To Last PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 I 87
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