THIS year’s Ayr Gold Cup will be run at Haydock Park on Saturday. That was the outcome of discussions between the racecourse executive and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) after Ayr finally conceded defeat on Friday in their attempt to save the final day of the Western Meeting. However, William Hill, the main race’s original sponsor, will be replaced by 32Red.
Rupert Adams, William Hill’s spokesman, said: “Having had discussions, there is nowhere that is suitable other than Ayr. Yesterday, we took the winning rugs for the 2017 Ayr Gold Cup and gave them to Riding for the Disabled because we don’t need them.”
Richard Wayman, chief operating officer for the BHA, said: “We are delighted that the Ayr Gold Cup – which is such an important betting race – has been saved and will be run at Haydock on September 30.”
There will be no special draw for the race and the standard automated draw allocation will be in operation. The race will have a maximum safety factor of 17 runners, as opposed to the 25-runner field Ayr would have had, with full details to be confirmed tomorrow.
It is the reverse of a situation almost three decades ago, when the 1989 St Leger was staged at Ayr after the meeting at Doncaster was abandoned when the course was deemed unsafe. As Ayr opened its gates yesterday to provide ticket holders with a free day’s racing – albeit via television from Newbury, Newmarket and Catterick – the executive were left to count the cost and find the answers to the inevitable questions that arose after the loss of all three days of the Scottish racing calendar’s most prestigious Flat meeting.
The course, which is not insured against the loss of the Western Meeting, is facing a “high six-figure loss” according to the track’s head of public relations, Iain Ferguson.
He said work will begin tomorrow to ascertain exactly what caused the patch of false ground which led to the meeting being abandoned.
Ayr’s final two Flat meetings of the year, on October 3 and 12, may now be switched to the hurdles course, which would prevent the track from staging any sprint races.
The problem is believed to be a drainage issue – two sprint races were abandoned due to a collapsed drain on another part of the straight course in July 2016.
However, Ferguson said: “We don’t know what the underlying problem is. There was a rumour that it was a burst water pipe but it’s not that.Drainage is the first that comes to mind but we won’t know until there’s been a full investigation.
“The track has been here since 1907. Before that it was agricultural land. There are old ceramic drains down there and it could be one of those that’s collapsed.”
Ferguson dismissed any suggestions that Ayr, which has had more than £20 million invested in various projects since 2006, had not made sufficient effort to maintain the racing surface or drainage and that “there’s been no skimping on money”.
That was backed by Jim Goldie. The trainer has had 600 runners at Ayr in the last five years and he said: “I think they’re been unlucky. I’d be 90 per cent sure that’s it’s an old drain that’s been put in a hundred years ago.”
Meanwhile Frankie Dettori got a chance to practice his flying dismount ahead of riding Enable in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe next Sunday when he rode James Garfield to win the Group Two Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury.
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