Smooth start for new stalls handlers
The jockeys decided to miss the meeting in protest at the decision by owners Arena Leisure to use their own team rather than the traditional RaceTech handlers.
Senior riders had expressed their concerns over safety issues with the new team and the long-term prospects for the RaceTech handlers.
Last night’s meeting was the new handlers’ first experience of raceday action but the opening wolverhampton racecourse.co.uk Claiming Stakes passed with little trouble. Nico’s Girl was initially reluctant to enter the stalls and a little fractious whilst in the gate but the handlers dealt with the situation effectively.
Seb Sanders, one of only two well-known riders to be in action at the meeting, eventually won the six-furlong heat on the 4-9 favourite Outlook.
Although he rode one horse for retained trainer Sir Mark Prescott, Sanders did not accept any outside rides at the meeting.
He said: “It is a very hard subject to talk about really, as Sir Mark Prescott had a runner and I had to ride it.
The handlers encountered their first real problem when Left Nostril broke out of the stalls before the Holiday Inn Dunstall Park Fillies’ Selling Stakes. Phil McEntee’s filly ducked under the front of the stalls, leaving apprentice rider Donna Caldwell in the gate, before running loose around the track.
Wolverhampton clerk of the course Jon Pullin was keen to point out that incidents like that are an everyday feature of racing.
He said: “The horse has just gone under the gates and that is something that does happen fairly frequently on other racecourses as well.
“It’s nothing particular about the horse or the team, it’s just one of those things.
“The jockey said the horse has done it at home as well. It had perhaps got into the habit of doing that and tried it today.”
