SOUTHWELL - EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS AS A RACECOURSE AT RISK.

Having already inadvertently pre-empted far-reaching and not especially welcome changes to one racecourse in this blog, I am wary of speculating on future developments at Southwell as I did Haydock nine months ago. However, I have been moved to put fingers to keyboard again having seen the pictures released today of the East Midlands venue, and whilst they clearly show that the flood levels at the track have abated at last (for however long will be the question on everyone’s lips at the course, though), the true extent of the damage wrought by the exceptionally wet summer is only just starting to become apparent.

Not to put too fine a point on it, there is essentially nothing useful or re-usable left of the all-weather track which has been in situ for 18 years, its place taken instead by a mess of salt, silt, stones and slime, and rectification work on this alone is likely to account for £1.5 million of an overall bill which could yet nudge eight figures – emphatically not the kind of money too many racecourses in the country have sitting idle for a rainy day (never mind the several rainy weeks in this instance).

This is a crying shame for one of my favourite tracks in the country, one which at last count I had managed to visit seven times so far this decade, all for the summer jumps meetings with which it does so well. That should have been eight, but my intended visit earlier this year came to nothing in the end. What a greater pity that now looks in hindsight.

In all honesty. Southwell has never been a track of any great significance in the wider scheme of things (nor would its personnel claim otherwise), and its location in a largely nondescript corner of Nottinghamshire interspersed with the odd electricity pylon hardly marks it out as one of the most beautiful places to enjoy racing in the UK – Cartmel or Hexham it is not. It does, however, have a delightfully informal atmosphere, a courteous and dedicated staff, a surprisingly well-proportioned parade ring given the overall compact nature of the site, easy access to all facilities and an open sweets shop to die for.

The Fibresand track has important qualities above and beyond the actuality of its surface. The second course in the country to host an all-weather meeting back in November 1989 (a few days after Lingfield started it all off on October 30th), it remains to this day the only one of the quartet of artificial surface circuits to possess a straight 5f, and it is possessive of both a length of circuit and run-in longer than those of its contemporaries.

Although an infrequent stopping-off point for Festival and Classic winners, Southwell has nevertheless had a few noted course performers and curious moments in its recent history. Reg Hollinshead’s entire Suluk won a staggering 20 contests at the track in three and a half years up to August 1993 – including 18 wins and three seconds from 22 runs in the more widely feared all-weather hurdle races – and would have managed more besides these had injury not forced him to retire to stud (where he cut no ice) at eight. Barely a fortnight would pass during the early 1980s without Bill Clay’s front-running Some Jinks contesting a 2m 74yds chase of some description at the track, winning plenty. It was Southwell that played host to the bizarre contest in January 2002 in which every horse met with mishap before Family Business remounted to win. Lastly, of course, it was at Southwell that losingmost legend Quixall Crossett recorded his 100th consecutive defeat in July 2001.

In light of the course’s recent drubbings it has not taken too long for one inevitable decision to be taken, and no meetings will be run at Southwell until September at the very earliest. Realistically, with time required to lay a new artificial surface and then bed it in, and large sections of the turf jumps track apparently looking a very black shade of green at present, January 2008 would probably not rate as too unkind a projected resumption date. The question is – in what form should Southwell return?

It is probably a measure of the more holistic view of the sport I have taken with age that, even as an arch jumps fan, I refuse to regard the course’s misfortune as a perfect opportunity for it to eschew all-weather racing and return to just what I originally knew it to be, a low-ranking jumps track with an extensive programme of meetings right around the year. Quite the opposite in fact: its status as the only remaining Fibresand venue is not something that should be relinquished lightly, and the hordes of trainers who have in their care animals for whom this slower surface offers their soft ground / sand horses their greatest (in some cases only) chances of winning contents must be desperate for Arena not to use the flood as the excuse to usher in a change to Polytrack.

Inevitably clamours for Polytrack have already been voiced in certain racing forums, the supposed unpredictability and incongruity of Fibresand racing being cited as the main reason why Southwell is a graveyard for punters. Take Tioga Gold's record-breaking win at 125-1 earlier this year out of the equation, and it is absolutely nothing of the sort. A regular correspondent of mine insists that Southwell race analysis is like shooting fish in a barrel, particularly if one is to concentrate on races full of exposed types whose ability or inability to handle Fibresand over (or as well as) Polytrack was well established. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to contradict that assertion. Indeed, whilst other distractions meant that I only tipped on Southwell's Flat meetings spasmodically during my Sportsman tenure, I rarely finished down on the day there, even when confronted with a card of wall-to-wall Banded fare.

This assumes, of course, that Southwell will be reopened whenever opportunity finally presents itself, though in an environment in which shouts of too many races at too many tracks are rife, that cannot rate as a given.

There would be two desperate ironies were the floods to precipitate the closure of the track. Firstly, the whole raison d’etre of the all-weather surface was to provide a program of racing when inclement conditions elsewhere prevented it from taking place. Secondly, the course has provided sterling service in recent seasons as a replacement venue for other tracks, successfully hosting renewals of Doncaster contests such as the Skybet Chase and even as recently as late March picking up a meeting at – would you believe it – a flooded Worcester at short notice.

The hope is that the practicality and logistics of trying to absorb Southwell’s meetings (just under 70 originally scheduled for 2007) within the rest of the group would be enough on its own to dissuade Arena Leisure from calling time on the course. Given that the criticisms leveled at Wolverhampton during its ghastly run of jockeys’ falls and equine fatalities in 2006 included plenty questioning the wisdom of racing on the track somewhere in the region of 100 times in the space of a year, transferring former Southwell AW fixtures to Dunstall Park would run the risk of reopening old debates and possibly – if the worst came to the worst – inviting further accidents.

However, Arena must have a figure in mind beyond which it is not prepared to go to restore the course to a horse- and spectator-fit condition, and coming as they do hard on the heels of a profit warning, events of the last couple of weeks in my favourite little corner of Nottinghamshire leave the track’s owners with some unenviable decisions to make in the very near future.