Wednesday 13 August 2014

Innovative Racing Gets Underway At Wolverhampton Racecourse

At 2.15pm on Monday 8 runners and riders made British history by being the first to race on a Tapeta surface in Great Britain. Five furlongs was the distance tackled by these history makers, and in a time of 1 minute and 3 seconds the very impressive Primrose Valley (pictured) was first past the post for Frederik Tylicki and Ed Vaughan, by some 6 lengths!


It was a fitting tribute to all-weather surfaces that a horse owned by Alan Pickering would win the first race. Alan is great advocate of all-weather racing, often sending his runners to Lingfield Park and Kempton Park to run on their Polytrack surfaces.

Two thousand interested racegoers turned out to witness how the track would act and the results couldn't have been more positive. Winners came from the front, from the back, up the inside running rail and around the outside of the field to finish down the middle. Little kickback was experienced all afternoon with winning first race trainer Ed Vaughan commenting, "there appeared to be virtually no kickback", and jockeys noting the surface was faultless.


James Doyle, who has been enjoying a fantastic season aboard the sublime Kingman, rode a double on the day with victories coming aboard Angels Wings in the 3.15 and Madame Mirasol in the 4.15, for Charles Hills and Kevin Ryan respectively. The jollies had a good day in Wolverhampton, winning 4 of the 7 races, including the lucky last when William Buick gave Warrigal a superb ride to bag his only winner of the day for the in form Jeremy Noseda, James Doyle was only 3/4 of a length behind on Cousin Khee but Buick's victory was never in doubt after he took the lead over a furlong out.

Tapeta inventor, Michael Dickinson, was in attendance for the afternoon and said after the fixture, "We are delighted to have helped bring Tapeta to British Racing. The track has proved fair and formful, and every jockey has reported it as a safe surface to ride on. We hope it will provide years of excellent racing at Wolverhampton. We will continue to work closely with the team at Wolverhampton to ensure the track meets the needs of horses and jockeys."

Interested to see Timeform's review of the fixture? Check it out here.

All eyes now turn to Monday evening's fixture, first race off at 6.20pm, and Primrose Valley holds an entry in the feature race in the 8.50. Join us for another fantastic fixture, tickets from just £10.