'All-weather racing should be there to cover your backs' - ITV Racing editor calls for greater flexibility after channel's blank Saturday

ITV Racing editor Richard Willoughby has called on the sport to be more flexible with race times and planning after British racing's free-to-air broadcaster had to pull the plug on Saturday's programme after the meetings at Sandown and Wincanton were cancelled on raceday due to frozen ground.

When Sandown was called off due to waterlogging on the same day 12 months ago ITV drafted in coverage from Newcastle, but with the corresponding meeting abandoned on Friday, Ireland's sole fixture at Cork frozen off on Saturday and all-weather meetings from Southwell and Wolverhampton scheduled to start later in the day, the ITV Racing team were left with nowhere to turn.

Since the two-year Premier racing trial started at the beginning of last year, Premier meetings scheduled on Saturday afternoons have been given "room to breathe" through the imposition of a two-hour protected window, during which no more than two Premier and one core meeting take place.

As a result of that controversial decision, some Saturday fixtures are required to finish before 2pm or start after 4pm, while race times cannot be brought forward after runners have been declared, meaning ITV's planned coverage between 1.30m and 4pm on Saturday was aborted.

"In my opinion an all-weather meeting should be there to cover your backs at this time of year," said Willoughby. "When racing is susceptible to the weather, I don't understand – even before the start of the week – why one of the all-weather meetings isn't standing by in the afternoon. I imagine that's down to the introduction of premierisation.

"The other frustration is that there's not enough flexibility around race times. Once race times have been published, why isn't there more flexibility around moving times around? We want to show racing but they are the rules."

There will be no ITV Racing coverage after the cancellation of Sandown and WincantonCredit: Edward Whitaker

Southwell's fixture had initially been due to start after the 4pm protected window, but when two of the seven races were looking likely to divide at declaration stage on Thursday, the now nine-race card was scheduled to begin at 2.47pm due to avoid clashing with an amber weather warning later in the day.

That did open up the possibility for ITV to show the first two races from Southwell, but with only three runners in the opening race, that option was declined.

"We could have shown something but I knew the first race at Southwell was going to have three runners and, after an amazing Christmas period, do we really want to be showing racing like that to a main channel audience?" said Willoughby. "It's frustrating but the rules are the rules and we took the decision our hands were tied and there was nothing we could do, handing back the time to ITV."

The BHA described Saturday's blackout on terrestrial TV as "regrettable" having taken the decision not to reschedule another meeting into the afternoon time slot before declaration stage and after monitoring the situation throughout the week, which included "communicating" with officials at Sandown, Newcastle and Wincanton.

Willoughby added: "The BHA pretty much put their hands up that they'd made a wrong judgment call and I think the frustration for me is it's another example of the sport looking back on what it could have done when really we should be looking forward and making sure it doesn't happen again."

Mark Clayton: "It's not great for British racing having a bit of an empty gap"Credit: David Carr

ITV's lead commentator Richard Hoiles shared many of Willoughby's thoughts, while stating there is no need for the protected window on Saturdays to last for as long as it does.

Hoiles said: "In these circumstances the loss of a [terrestrial] slot and the related turnover is regrettable and racing just needs to be more nimble-footed when it comes to this sort of thing."

On Premier racing, he added: "Rather than a protected window I think there should be protected races. Use the King George as an example. If that's the main race on that day, it should be in every racecard up and down the country as a race on your programme. So if you're up at Market Rasen, race four happens to be the King George and it's shown on the big screen, you bet on it and there's nothing 15 minutes either side of it. So it doesn't take place on your track but everybody stops and watches it because it's the main race of the day.

"There should be maybe 30 of those races a year where the whole of racing stops, watches that race and participates in it and then we all pick up and go again. I don't see the need to have two hours' worth of it. Ring-fence the race rather than the meeting and then everything would be that much more flexible in circumstances like this."

ITV Racing: no Saturday coverage following the abandonments of Sandown and Wincanton Credit: Alan Crowhurst

Asked whether a decision could have been made on Thursday to move not just two races but Southwell's entire fixture forward as a contingency in case the three jump meetings in Britain were cancelled, the track's executive director Mark Clayton said on Saturday: "If we knew earlier in the week that Sandown, Wincanton and Newcastle were going to be off, I'm sure the BHA would have attempted to reschedule either ourselves or Wolverhampton into an afternoon slot, which would have been agreeable to either course.

"But with the weather the way it is, there was no certainty around that and at this late stage we can't reschedule our times to that extent."

When Sandown was abandoned last year, the Veterans' Chase Series Final was rescheduled for Warwick the following weekend and a spokesperson for Jockey Club Racecourses, owners of both tracks, said discussions around saving the same race had already started.

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