'I'm absolutely fuming' - Fergal O'Brien slams Ffos Las for lack of clarity

Trainer Fergal O'Brien has slammed Ffos Las over the delay in clarifying the prospects of racing before the course abandoned its seven-race card on Thursday.

The South Wales track failed its scheduled first inspection at 7.30am but called a second check at 9.30am as conditions were anticipated to improve. It announced via its Twitter account at 9.26am the meeting was cancelled due to the stable area being frozen, meaning the track was unable to provide hot or cold water.

O'Brien hit out at the lack of clarity from the track's clerk of the course Dai Jones on Thursday afternoon. Jones was unable to be reached for comment by the Racing Post.

O'Brien said: "I spoke to Dai Jones yesterday afternoon and he said as long as they didn't get below -5C they'd think they'd be happy so I spent three hours getting a lorry out of our yard so we'd go racing today.

"I spoke to them again at 7.30 and there was no mention whatsoever of the water being frozen. The track was going to be fine, it was 50-50, they just needed the sun to come up and everything was going to be hunky dory.

"You're trying to tell me they didn't know there was no water there at 7.30? Do me a favour. Not once did he [Jones] mention to me there was no water in the stable yards."

'I'm going to send him an invoice'

O'Brien had been due to saddle odds-on favourite Mahon Point in the novice handicap chase at 2.48 and St Patricks Bridge at 3.18, with stable conditional Jack Hogan also engaged to ride in the opening race at 12.38.

"It's an absolute joke," he added. "One lad had to leave at 8am to ride in the first and the horses had to leave at 9am because there wasn't an inspection until 9.30. Racing was never going to be on.

"When you have four members of staff go off your yard and you're trying to get 86 horses out of one yard and 36 horses out of another yard, four members of staff is a lot of staff to lose. It's made it hard work in our yard for the staff who have remained.

"I've got owners who had plans to go there. Owners have taken time off, they could have gone to work at 7.30 if they [Ffos Las] had said then, 'Sorry, the situation isn't good'. I'm absolutely fuming."

O'Brien believes the course should pay compensation and added: "It's wasting people's time and they should be made to pay. If they have an inspection at 7.30 and they want to go ahead and do another inspection then they should be made to pay for transport. I'm going to send him [Jones] an invoice for the three staff who had to go out of the yard and the hour on the road and the hour coming back.

"All the things coming out saying Ffos Las has been so good, it's all a crock of sh*t. They didn't mention they had no water at 7.30.

"I wanted racing on, we had two runners there and we had a 4-5 favourite. We want to have racing but we want clerk of the courses to just say it as it is. If we can't race, we can't race. If they keep putting it off, that's the most frustrating thing in the world."

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