WORCESTER - IMPERFECT, AND MEANLY-ENDOWED, BUT HOW SUMMER NEEDS IT

After all the flood-induced trials and tribulations at the course in the last 12 months, it was great to see Worcester racecourse fully functional again a week last Sunday, the seven-race card including the first steeplechases at the track this year following two all-hurdle affairs previously.

With neither a cloud in the sky nor a semblance of a puddle on the racing surface, only a Biblical plague of frogs or similar was going to stop this hitherto ill-starred venue proceeding with a meeting as intended on this occasion.

The Pitchcroft course does have its critics, myself and fellow Betfair Radio pundit David Cleary among them - Sportsman readers may remember both of us having taken turns to give the place a bit of a kicking in our respective columns at least once each. Its physical situation, hard up between the city centre streets and the River Severn, inhibits significant outward development of the course’s facilities, and many of those facilities are modest to say the least. Further, judged against some of the other jumps courses in operation during the spring and summer, the prizemoney on offer is regularly dismal – last Sunday’s feature 0-135 handicap chase offered a first prize kitty of £5,850, all of £3,300 less than the equivalent for a 0-130 handicap chase at Aintree on Friday night and just the same as for a class 3 early season novices’ hurdle at Fakenham two nights earlier.

However, to steal a line from the 18th century poet William Cowper, “Worcester, with all thy faults, I love thee still”. Its long straights, sweeping bends and two rows of wide fences ensure that Worcester remains as fair a test of a horse as you will find during the summer season. Indeed, once Hexham and Towcester draw stumps on their respective seasons in mid-June, it becomes the only track in operation over the following three months that can realistically be labeled as anything other than “sharp”.

Simply put, Worcester offers vital variety to the summer jumping calendar and a sole refuge for the longer-striding animal. It would actually rate a more logical place for a proper marathon chase to me than Uttoxeter, home of the Summer National since its inception in 2000; and the resurrection of the course’s King John Chase, a 3m5f handicap run at a March meeting at Pitchcroft until around 20 years ago, as a big-money contest around July or August would certainly meet with my approval.

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Back to the here and now, however, and despite not being rewarded especially handsomely for his efforts in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, the 9yo Kilrogan threw his hat into the ring as a possible aspirant for the “Plate” races – the Galway Plate and Market Rasen’s Summer Plate – with a gutsy display in the aforementioned Worcester feature. Out in front for long enough on a course (ironically, given what we’ve discussed so far) rather more galloping than he prefers, he dug deep close home under Timmy Murphy to record a fourth victory under Rules.

It is exactly a year since he took a maiden hunters’ chase at Folkestone’s all-amateur meeting on his British debut for then handler Bob Lancaster, and he has progressed nicely since then granted good or quicker going and a minimum of 2m4f to travel. A raise for this win is likely to elevate his current mark of 120 to one off which he should be able to sneak into the Summer Plate with an attractively small weight (the bottom one in last year’s maximum-field renewal ran off 126), and Market Rasen will suit his prominent racing style better than Worcester. Along with Border Castle, he is a grand advertisement for the skills of the still relatively new trainer Andrew Haynes.

Not that we are guaranteed even to see the Summer Plate winner any time before the event itself, of course, with many recent renewals having gone to horses making their seasonal reappearance. However, the Summer Plate and Summer Hurdle trials will continue at a steady trickle until the start of July now - next stop a 0-135 hurdle at Stratford on Friday and a class 2 handicap chase at the same venue 24 hours later.