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Racing News |
Wetherby’s Caribbean Saturday!
05/01/09
Racegoers will be able to banish the winter blues at Wetherby’s ‘Caribbean Saturday’ this weekend (January 10) – the course’s first meeting of 2009.
The seven-race programme is set to begin at 12-25 p.m. and the gates open at 10-30 a.m.
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With cocktails available in the Caribbean Marquee and the Paradise Steel Band providing the musical entertainment, there’s an exotic backdrop to the action on the track which features a new £30,000 Graduation Chase for stayers over three miles and one furlong.
Conditional jockeys and amateur riders take part in the opening race, The Racing Post ‘Hands & Heels’ Jumps Series Handicap Hurdle – one of a series of 13 such races held throughout the UK during the current season over Jumps – designed to encourage riders not to resort to using the whip. A points system operates throughout this series which concludes at Newbury in March. After two races, amateur rider Ian Popham is in the lead.
Saturday’s card also includes a qualifying race in this season’s European Breeders’ Fund Novices’ Hurdle series, in which the first four horses in this contest over two and a half miles, will be eligible to compete in the £70,000 Final of this national series at Sandown Park in March.
Four-year-old fillies take part in the final contest, a Bumper race on the Flat for young horses about to begin their careers over Jumps. This race over one mile and five furlongs is supported by The Thoroughbred Breeders Association.
The giant screen will be situated opposite the main stands, complemented by a display screen serving the parade ring area.
