'The most challenging summer I've known' - but racing set to resume at Taunton

Officials at Taunton, which has lost its last two meetings because of quick ground, are confident there will be no problems for their next fixture in two weeks.

The Somerset track's final card of the 2021-22 campaign was not staged because there was not enough water to irrigate. It was a similar case on Wednesday when the course was due to host seven races as it opened its doors for the autumn.

Unsuitably quick ground has not been confined to Taunton and Bath, which does not have a watering system, has not raced since July, while recent jumps meetings at Ludlow, Exeter and Wincanton have been cancelled because of the prolonged dry period.

A recent fixture at Wincanton was cancelled because of fast groundCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

Taunton's clerk of the course Jason Loosemore sees an end to that and said on Wednesday: "We've got our next meeting on November 10 and should be okay. We are receiving rain and are set to [continue with rain] through to that day.

"We are putting a bit of water on the bends and will take stock of where we are next week and how the forecast is panning out, but we should be absolutely fine."

Loosemore and his team take water from an on-site reservoir, which has been depleted over recent months.

"It's had a bit added to and we're getting rain," he added. "We were forecast to get rain and it's arrived. Since we abandoned last week we've had 35mm of rain, which was in line with forecasts.

"It didn't get us raceable. I was there on Monday and, even with that rain, you couldn't race on it. However, there's more rain to come and we can now top it up with watering when required.

"We lost our last meeting of last season in April when we ran out of water and it was a dry spring followed by an immensely dry summer. It's been a pretty dry autumn until the last ten days too."

'We've never had to water so much at Newton Abbot'

That period has tested Loosemore, who also oversees Newton Abbot, a summer jumping venue.

"It's been the most challenging summer I've known," he said. "We've never had to water so much at Newton Abbot. We had to put some on for our final meeting of the year on October 15, and if someone had said we'd be watering in October when I started this job, which was a good few years ago, I'd have said they were mad.

"We had quite a bit of rain due, so I told the boys, quite confidently, we could stick the watering equipment away, but we had to use it the day before."

Taunton, which stages its flagship Portman Cup meeting on January 21, has a reputation for producing a sounder surface in the depths of winter.

"When other courses might have hock-deep ground through the winter, we can provide some good to soft, good ground," Loosemore said. "We've watered Taunton in January and February before. That's not unheard of in recent times and you can feel a bit ridiculous if you're putting on water and it's heavy ground everywhere else, but that's the nature of it."

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