Quevega survived a last-hurdle blunder to win the Ladbrokes.com World Series Hurdle at Punchestown this week but had she made the same mistake at another Irish track like Ballinrobe she may not have won so clearly. Easyfix hurdles are in use at several of Ireland’s lower-level tracks after being approved for use at all racecourses in November 2008 by the Irish Turf Club. As yet the BHA has not approved them for use in British racing.
Easyfix, an Irish company, make plastic hurdles which are widely praised by many top UK jumps trainers who use them for schooling their horses. Champion trainer Paul Nicholls uses them and his assistant, Dan Skelton says they are a “league apart” for training purposes. Skelton told me: “We use Easyfix at home for schooling over hurdles and fences and are very happy with them. The great thing is they’re padded. The birch doesn’t wilt off and so maintenance is lower and this helps prevent injury caused by the obstacle. For schooling they are very safe. There is no opposition to using them at home.”
The hurdles were demonstrated after racing at Perth in 2008 where Racecourse Manager, Sam Morshead expressed a desire to use them at their following April meeting in 2009. Since then little has been heard in the UK of them and, as seen this week, Punchestown do not yet use them.
Skelton said: “Punchestown don’t use them for their festival races and they won’t do so for Championship races until they are standard in the UK. There would be an unfair bias toward horses that have raced over them before and therefore some Irish horses would benefit over the others. Traditional hurdles will continue to be used in Championship races until the product is used across all tracks.”
The advantages of the hurdles are that they are padded and fixed. They are easy to move for training purposes and intriguingly from a commercial point of view it is possible to put a sponsor’s name clearly on the front, as is the normal practice with fences. Thus its likely Cheltenham could widen sponsorship opportunities for the likes of the Champion Hurdle where the sponsor’s name is in view when jumping the final flight. Morshead also explained to me this week the problems with the current hurdles: “At one of our meetings around 40 hurdles can get damaged taking 10 days to repair at a substantial cost.” The maintenance costs of plastic hurdles are less than the costs of timber hurdles adding a further attractiveness to racecourses. Another benefit Sam identifies is with the running of bumper races: “The safety element of not having to run National Hunt Flat races over holes in the ground make them a good thing in my view. You can simply move them off the track to stage a bumper and they don’t leave hazardous holes.”
So how soon could it be before we see them in use in the UK? The BHA is reluctant according to Sam Morshead: “I have been very keen to race over Easyfix hurdles at Perth for quite a few years. I was disappointed in the first instance when the BHA decided not to allow the go-ahead to use them at Perth. We’ve had successful schooling sessions with the Easyfix hurdles and trainers have been happy with them. The BHA have produced statistics indicating that the falls which occur over the Easyfix hurdles are worse than those over traditional timber hurdles thus leading to more fatalities due to somersaults being more likely. If these statistics are true then I can accept that. I can also understand that if, in this economic climate, the BHA felt the cost of changeover would be too much.
My ground-staff and I have seen them in use in Ireland and everyone was in praise. But, for one reason or another, the BHA has been more reluctant than the Irish Turf Club to approve them.”
Dan Skelton concurs with regards the praise they’ve received in Ireland: “Ultimately, jockeys need to be considered most before we use them in races. They are the ones who have to ride over them and they want to be safe. Ruby [Walsh] obviously rides over them a lot in Ireland and the reviews are fairly positive.”
The statistics the BHA are said to have produced raise an interesting issue. If the Easyfix hurdles are safer then the BHA are wrong. If the BHA is right, then the Irish Turf Club is has made a mistake from a welfare perspective.
Nevertheless, it is to the Irish Turf Club’s credit that they have taken the initiative to test them out given that Easyfix’s figures suggest 1.88% of fallers out of 75 races and 1061 runners over the Easyfix in 2008 compared with a 4.45% fall rate of 1100 runners in 78 races over traditional hurdles in 2007. The statistics are from races at Sligo, Kilbeggan, Roscommon and Ballinrobe racecourses. An innovation such as this, which has been embraced by trainers, is certainly worth trying. Paul Nicholls said in 2008: “I see the Turf Club have given the go ahead for the Easyfix Hurdles to be used on any Irish Race tracks. We in Britain should eventually follow suit after a watching brief, as these are the way forward.”
Despite the Nicholls yard’s obvious enthusiasm for the artificial obstacles, Skelton brings up one issue: “One concern about the plastic hurdles is that they don’t fall. This is a problem not in itself but because some horses have become accustomed to traditional hurdles and never experienced a hurdle which doesn’t fall in a race. This could obviously cause problems and injuries especially for the more experienced horses used to racing over hurdles which fall.
“Perhaps more horses will be debuting having schooled over the Easyfix and in Ireland will be debuting over the Easyfix and then they could continue to race over them no problem because they aren’t used to traditional hurdles.”
Skelton’s point illustrates the need for there to be a transition period if Easyfix were ever to come into use in the UK. Courses like Perth and perhaps Towcester, which also showed interest in schooling sessions in 2008, would be likely candidates for such a trial. Haydock and Worcester already use ‘Fixed brush’ hurdles for some of their races.
The BHA’s stance on the issue is that new fence and hurdle designs should be encouraged with the aim of reducing “manageable risk”. Whether that could include changing hurdles to a new plastic design, which has existed for some time, is unclear; but given that there are approved fences with an open ditch to make them more difficult, and that Aintree’s Grand National fences are also approved, it seems unlikely that pressure for a British trial of Easyfix hurdles would go ignored. Unlike on many other issues, people in racing are clearly open to change.
Sam Morshead is realistic: “I would hope they can be part of the future but the welfare and safety element has to be sorted first.”
Talking to Dan Skelton one gets the sense that plastic hurdles are the future but there is a long way still to go: “We’ll take advice from jockeys, experts and others. People like Paul Nicholls will obviously be involved in any plans. I’m not cautious necessarily about using them in races. We all think something’s going to happen but it will take time. When something does happen we have to make sure we get it right. The last thing anyone wants is for racing to make changes without carefully considering everything and then having to change it back again because it isn’t working.”
