Crock of Gold 2013

Last Saturday night saw the pinnacle of UK harness racing take place at Tir Prince Raceway, Towyn, north Wales. The Crock of Gold is the highlight of the racing calendar for the top handicapped horses, and this year the quality of the entries was phenomenal.

With mid-week entries at 22, to be split into two heats, the excitement was brewing across the whole of the UK and Ireland. Bookmakers William Hill opened the ante-post betting on their website for the race with the Laidler stable star Stoneriggs Mystery favourite and Irish raider Forafewdollarsmore second favourite. Both horses have won the race previously, ‘Dollar’ in 2010 and Mystery in 2012, with Laneside Lexus, a mare who has since been exported to Canada to race, taking the prize in between.

The Boss wasn’t taking anything up for the meeting, as three of ours were entered to race the next day at Allensmore, so I travelled up by myself on the Friday evening to meet Smarty. It would seem that if I’m not working with the horses at the races, I’m working as a clerk. One day I might actually get to go racing just for fun! Imagine that!

By the day of the meeting, entries had reduced to 20 and it was therefore planned to have two heats of 10, followed by a final. This was further reduced to 19 runners on the evening, as Cutchall Hanover was declared a non-runner. Several stables had two or more runners, so provision was made to ensure that not all horses from the same stables would run against each other in the same heat. Smarty and I were so keen to get there and get set up that we left at 1pm (the first race was due to go off at 6.35pm). We killed a bit of time sitting in the sun watching the market stalls clear up then headed down to the paddock to get the draw for the Crock heats. Once the full draw had been concluded we returned to the vehicle to set up the equipment.

What a night of racing it turned out to be! I have never been so busy clerking, not even at Aberystwyth over the two days. The money flying around was out of this world, and the racing itself was a fantastic spectacle. I wrote to S4C earlier in the week to complain about the quality of their previous Rasus programmes and told them that I hoped the Tir Prince episode would be better due to the improved quality of racing; that hope was certainly fulfilled.

I went to the rail to watch most races amongst the crowd, just to soak up the atmosphere. I think Eric Witherspoon deserves a special mention for the hard work and efforts he poured in to advertising the meeting; it paid off. There were a lot of trotting faces milling around, but there were also a lot of people that I have never seen before but hope to see there again this season and in the future. It was while I was stood amongst these people that I thought ‘this racing is a real advert for out sport’.

Mick Lord romped home lengths clear in the first, which although impressive to watch was slightly disappointing as I wanted the crowd to see some real battles going to the line. It didn’t take long for that to happen – the first heat of the Crock was the second race on the card and it provided a brilliant finish with Meadowbranch Josh just snatching victory from Meadowbranch DJ, followed home by a below par Stoneriggs Mystery in third.

As clerk for Smarty I was in charge of the advert that scrolled across the top of his electronic board (note: this is the first time we’ve managed to get it to work and now we’re flying!). For the Crock heats it simply read ‘CROCK OF GOLD 2013 – HERE WE GO!’, and the feedback I’ve received this week has suggested that perhaps we pulled in a few more punters with the messages over the course of the evening. Ante-post second favourite ‘Dollar’ came home in front in the second heat with Foolaround second and Ayr Mission finishing strongly to take third.

After that it was the STAGBI Future Broodmares series, a series for mares aged 4+ and sponsored by STAGBI. Now I’m quite proud of the message I had scrolling across the top of the board for this one – ‘STAGBI MARES RACE – WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/STAGBI - HERE COME THE GIRLS!’. I know this was a hit with the crowd because I saw several women pointing and laughing to their other halves. Us girls have got to stick together after all! Baby Rosa went off favourite in this race, having won several times this season already. However, it was the Laidler-trained and Scottish-owned Southsideaffection, known as Susie to her owner John O’Neil (who is friends with Smarty) who landed the spoils in this race. John wasn’t the only person running towards the track as they came off the last bend shouting ‘Go on Susie!’ as most of the money taken had been on Baby Rosa (at least with us anyway).

The NWSA 3yo races followed, both colts/geldings and fillies divisions. Ladyford Indiana added another trophy to the cabinet in the first division and Stamp Hill followed her example shortly after in the second. It was around this time that I was seen by McKelvie’s owners drinking from Stamp Hill’s trophy whilst trying to take bets at the same time – who said women can’t multi-task?!

The last televised race, and the highlight of the whole evening, was the Crock of Gold final. Chaos doesn’t even sum up what the betting was like with us – I was taking alternate bets from both Smarty and Mr Fettah in such quick succession that I didn’t know what we were holding money for, what the odds were, where I was, who I was with or in fact what I was really doing. The draw for the final was Foolaround 1, Meadowbranch Josh 2, Ayr Mission 3, Meadowbranch DJ 4, Rhyds Fivestar 5, Passit 6, Forafewdollarsmore 7 and Stoneriggs Mystery 8. Tir Prince is able to accommodate eight horses on the gate as oppose to five at most other tracks (or four in some cases). Neither of the heat winners were able to land the big prize as Rhys Evans and Foolaround, last season’s Tregaron Classic Final winner, came home in style to bring the Crock of Gold back to Wales for the next 12 months.

The remaining races were handicaps and a FFA trot, which were in no way an anti-climax as all racing at Tir Prince appears to be as competitively-run as the Crock. After the racing had finished, Smarty and I joined Irish friends in the bar for a few drinks. Their ferry was due to leave Holyhead for Dublin at 2am, and most of them there were racing the following day at Portmarnock. Smarty and I were heading in opposite directions the next morning as well in pursuit of more racing, him to Corbiewood and myself to Allensmore, so it was agreed amongst us all that next weekend at Musselburgh will be party time. Look out Scotland! The harness-racing bandwagon rolls into town at the end of the week, and will leave you feeling thoroughly abused by Monday!

Full results from Crock of Gold meeting at Tir Prince:

Race 1 - Maiden

1^st Oakview Monarch

2^nd President

3^rd Blytheview Jackson

Race 2 – Crock of Gold Heat 1

1^st Meadowbranch Josh

2^nd Meadowbranch DJ

3^rd Stoneriggs Mystery

Race 3 – Crock of Gold Heat 2

1^st Forafewdollarsmore

2^nd Foolaround

3^rd Ayr Mission

Race 4 – STAGBI Mares Race

1^st Southsideaffection

2^nd Baby Rosa

3^rd West End Girl

Race 5 – NWSA 3YO Fillies

1^st Ladyford Indiana

2^nd Coalford Silk

3^rd Showtime Doll

Race 6 – NWSA 3YO Colts/Geldings

1^st Stamp Hill

2^nd Chinatown Kolt

3^rd Ontop Girlcharmer

Race 7 – Crock of Gold Final

1^st Foolaround

2^nd Meadowbranch DJ

3^rd Forafewdollarsmore

Race 8 – High Grade Open Preferred Handicap

1^st Lyons Eryl Hall

2^nd Duggans Pride

3^rd Infinatey

Race 9 – Low Grade Open Preferred Handicap

1^st Porterstown Road

2^nd Tarawood Messi

3^rd Blackngold

Race 10 – FFA Trot

1^st Caminetto

2^nd Yke Starlake

3^rd Yleen Zes HB

Over and out,

Sarah (#1 Groom & Super-Clerk)