Sombre mood at Newbury's rescheduled races

A sense of relief at the racecourse as the first race went off without incident

GLOOMY weather provided a fitting backdrop for a muted race day at Newbury Racecourse today (Friday) as the Totesport card, cancelled amid tragedy at the venue last Saturday following the accidental death of two racehorses, went ahead.

Full refunds or free entry had been offered to racing fans whose day was cut short by the incident last Saturday, in which two horses, Marching Song and Fenix Two, died in the parade ring after being electrocuted, and around 3,000 turned out.

The joint managing director of the racecourse, Stephen Higgins, admitted shortly before the gates opened for that it had been a tough week for him personally as well as his team, but he was confident the racecourse would put on a normal day of racing and move on.

The first few punters through the gates noted the cold weather, and the events of the last week were on most people's lips.

"It's good that they have put it back on but for some people it has been too early. It's run by TV and TV money, they hold all the power so I'm not sure how much choice the Racecourse would have had," said Chris Lanns, from Newbury.

The mood amongst the seasoned punters was mixed.

"If we had seen it last week, we probably wouldn't be here. We are regulars and we took up the chance to come back. The Racecourse is an excellent place to come and we think they need our support," said Eileen Kirkland, from Wantage.

As the jockeys and horses took a restrained trot around the parade ring before the first race, the attention of onlookers was drawn by a hole in the ground, where the suspect cable, blamed for causing the electrocution of the horses, had been dug up and removed.

The first race, the Totesport.com Handicap Hurdle, went off without incident, and almost as if the venue itself breathed a sigh of relief, the atmosphere improved as crowd numbers swelled and last weeks incident was consigned to history.

Big names in the football world, Harry Redknapp and Sir Alex Ferguson, were present, and some race fans even noted that the reduced numbers had given them a better chance of spotting the famous faces.

With full details of an investigation carried out by Southern Electric and the British Horseracing Authority still to be revealed, a cloud will remain over the venue until the terrible events of last Saturday are fully understood, but as far as racing is concerned, some semblance of normality has been restored.

For more on this story and a full report of the day, pick up a copy of next week's Newbury Weekly News.