Four races abandoned after horse slips and jockey catapulted off on track in awful scenes

SportHorse Racing FOUR races were scrapped at Thirsk today due to safety concerns. Only one race was completed of the planned slate before an inspection caused the rest of proceedings to be scrapped. Hatamoto triumphed in the day’s opening race Credit: Steven Cargill / racingfotos.com Four races at Thirsk were KO’d Credit: Getty During the day’s opener, the mile amateur jockeys’ handicap, jockey Jack Loughnane was thrown from Calaxy after the horse slipped. Thankfully both horse and rider came out of the worrying incident unscathed. Sign up for the Sport newsletter Thank you! But the same could not be said of the course. After Rebecca Burley triumphed on Hatamoto, an inspection of the bend on which Calaxy fell was called. Track attendants sanded the area in question and the inspection lasted more than 20 minutes. Eventually the decision was made to cancel every remaining race that used that bend. This left just one contest on the straight. Thirsk chief James Sanderson told Racing TV: “It was decided in the interest of safety that we should not race around that bend today. Most read in Horse Racing “Everyone felt it was just not quite right to continue given there was very clear and obvious evidence of a horse having slipped, which is a great shame. Safety has to come first. “It’s not a watering issue. If you walk that bend, there’s some good cut in it, and there’s a good cover of grass. “We’ve had three millimetres of rain last night, we were possibly expecting a drop more, and that will be sitting in the top of it, and a very light shower we had before racing didn’t help. “I’m not trying to make an excuse, if you go and walk it now you weren’t getting moisture on your shoes, but clearly the traction wasn’t quite right for that horse. “There would be concern that could happen again, so you have to listen to the riders and the trainers. “They’re all being very pragmatic but they clearly had genuine concerns about ground around it again.” Comment now