Tag: lingfield

How many times has Ryan Moore won the Derby?

Ryan Moore was crowned Champion Jockey in 2006, 2008 and 2009 and would surely have won the jockeys’ title in 2007, too, but for a broken right arm, sustained in a fall at Lingfield in March that year, which kept him out of action for three months. Nevertheless, Moore still finished third in the jockeys’ championship and, that November, became stable jockey to Sir Michael Stoute.

Indeed, three years later, in 2010, Ryan Moore rode his first Derby winner, Workforce, owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah and trained by Stoute. Sent off at 6/1 joint-third favourite for the Epsom Classic, the King’s Best colt made short work of the opposition, winning by seven lengths and, in so doing, beating the previous track record set by Lammtarra fifteen years earlier.

Workforce went on to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp but, in 2011, Moore was widely expected to become stable jockey to Aidan O’Brien at Balldoyle, County Tipperary, Ireland. That move failed to materialise as anticipated, but Moore continued his informal, but nonetheless effective, association with O’Brien, which would yield numerous Group One and Grade One victories in Britain, Ireland and the United States. Indeed, O’Brien supplied Moore with his second Derby winner, Ruler Of The World, who maintained his unbeaten record by defeating eleven rivals, including better-fancied stable companion Battle Of Marengo, in the 2013 renewal.

When was all-weather horse racing introduced into Britain?

Horse racing on synthetic surfaces, popularly known as ‘all-weather’ racing, was first mooted in Britain after the very cold, snowy winter of 1984/85, which resulted in a raft of National Hunt fixtures being abandoned. In early 1987, the Jockey Club, which preceded the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), received several proposals for all-weather tracks, but the first to be given an official stamp of approval was Lingfield Park, in late 1988. The first all-weather meeting at Lingfield Park was staged on Equitrack – that is, sand coated with oil-based polymers – on October 30, 1989. Shortly afterwards, Southwell, which had only received permission to install an all-weather track the previous June, staged its first meeting on November 8, 1989. Southwell chose Fibresand – that is, a mixture of sand particles and fine polypropylene fibres – as its racing surface, making it the first racecourse in the world to do so.

Four years later, on December 27, 1993, Wolverhampton had the distinction of staging the first floodlit fixture in Britain, also on Fibresand. On March 26, 2006, Kempton Park staged its first meeting on Polytrack – that is, a wax-coated mixture of sand and recycled synthetic fibres, rubber and PVC – and a year later was joined, albeit briefly, on the all-weather roster by the ill-fated Great Leighs (later renamed Chelmsford City). On August 11, 2015, Wolverhampton had the further distinction of becoming the first racecourse in Britain to install Tapeta – that is, an enhanced vesrion of Polytrack, designed to mimic the root structure of natural turf – and was joined a year later by Newcastle, which staged its first meeting on Tapeta on May 17, 2016.

What is Flat racing?

Flat racing – often, but not always, capitalised – is the code, or discipline, of horse racing that involves no obstacles. Flat racing is sometimes referred to as racing ‘on the level’, but some racecourses on which Flat racing is staged are anything but level, with pronounced undulations or severe uphill or downhill gradients. In Britain, Flat races are staged over distances between 5 furlongs and 2 miles 5 furlongs and 143 yards and take place, on turf, during a season that traditionally lasts from late March or early April to early November. However, Flat racing also takes place on the all-weather tracks at Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell and Wolverhampton all year round.