Plumpton New Year: A Day at the Races
It’s been cold. It’s been windy and wet. Train services have been decimated by strikes. Covid and flu have afflicted swathes of the local population. At New Year, anyone with sense is at the pantomime or wrapped under duvets at home watching sports action on Sky TV, even if it’s only the horses.
Ah, the horses! They’re jumping at Plumpton, the only first-class racing circuit left in East Sussex or Kent. And New Year means Sussex National Raceday, run this year on 2 January – the biggest meet on the annual calendar apart from at Easter. Over 60 horses have been declared to run, spread over seven races, including a line-up of 11 for the big race, the Sussex National Handicap Steeple Chase offering over £30,000 in prize money.
So we could stay at home and watch it all on the TV. But where’s the fun in that? The day dawns bright. After patchy showers overnight, which will render the going soft, there’s a sunny, almost cloudless sky and a moderate westerly breeze. From Hastings you can travel to the small village of Plumpton, north of Lewes, either by car or by train – there’s no rail strike today. So we, son Felix and I, choose an early train, shared with just a few well-wrapped gents who are already discussing the sporting prospects of the day. We admire the resplendent green landscape under the shadow of the Downs.
The course is right opposite the station exit. At the entrance to the stands, the management are offering free mulled wine and a mince pie to first comers. The bars are filling with serious drinkers, and a jazz band is warming up. It’s been a good day so far. We get down to the serious business of picking winners.
Not every one a winner
Some punters make their selections on the name. What have we got here? Forget The Way, the 25-1 shot in the second race doesn’t inspire confidence. Wind of Fortune, described in the official programme notes as a “handicap debutant” might blow hot or, then again, cold. Nearly Perfect, 14-1 in the National? Doesn’t sound like a winner but might be worth an each-way bet.
Others look at the form notes where the compiler goes in for abstruse insider detail. Coronado Joe’s efforts “so far this season have lacked sparkle…[but] will be a threat if the first-time cheekpieces have the desired effect”. Sublime Heights “ran abysmally at Southwell… his hopes are pinned on new headgear (blinkers)”.
Felix and I head for the ring where the runners are now being paraded to see whether we can pick out these sartorial aids. There’s a helpful notice attached to the fence advising “How To Pick A Winner” from among the horseflesh on display. “A gleaming and shining coat is a good indication that a horse is in good health….Big ears are a sign of a genuine horse and big nostrils are always a good thing to get air into their lungs… Check a horse’s character. If a horse in the paddock is looking around and walking on, that’s a positive.”
Race results
The first race has only two entrants, one of them at 9-1 on, and we’re encouraged to bet on the winning margin (11 lengths as it turns out). Not much sport in that and we keep out of it.
The second race is more intriguing – 12 in the field, including another odds-on favourite Master Chewy. But top weight Hansard, trained at local (Horsham) stables by Gary Moore and saddled by his son Jamie, won last month at Huntingdon and will surely appreciate the short travelling distance. He comes in two lengths clear of the field to bellows of approval. I’m in the money!
We meet up with our doctor friend Mark whose maxim is to avoid the car-parking crush by missing the first race and exiting before the last. We reckon he’ll be a fount of superior equine knowledge, boasting a corporate lawyer brother who owns a string of racehorses.
Mark is used to receiving hospitality amongst the owners and trainers, but he shares the crowded terrace with us just before the finishing post. You can see most of the mile-round circuit from here and, where you can’t, the large screen keeps the leaders in constant view – not to much effect from my point of view in races three, four and five, though Felix triumphs with En Coeur who comes from nowhere to storm home at 9-2.
Mark tells us the story of his five-year-old nephew who was given a slip to cash in on his first ever winning horse – £50 from a £5 bet at 10-1. “What’s fifty pounds?” he asked. “It’s like winning fifty ice-creams,“ Mark told him. “What’s fifty?” he asked again.
Our system
Now it’s the big race, the Sussex National. I stop assessing glossy coats and big nostrils and apply Felix’s system of watching for betting prices which shorten rapidly in the last minutes before the off. It’s the wisdom of crowds: someone, or more likely an aggregate of someones, has received an insider tip that lowers the odds. Chancers like us can then pile in behind.
Mark is backing the favourite, Blame The Game: he knows the trainer, Chris Gordon of Winchester, and praises the jockey Tom Cannon. But my pick Atakan matches this champion stride for stride, and in a thrilling finish just pips him at the post. A triumph for the system – repeated in the last race as both Felix and I back El Muchacho at 11-2, a third winner of the day!
We feel unreasonably smug as we slalom round the closing gates of the level crossing and catch the train back to Hastings with seconds to spare. It’s been a grand day out, and the journey home runs smoother and faster when you’re fingering a sliver of banknotes in each trouser pocket.
There are on average a couple of race meetings each month at Plumpton – next up is January Jumps Raceday on Wednesday 18.
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