All roads lead to Aber!

Apologies if I’m bombarding you with updates, but I am simply too excited not to write something! Tomorrow at 1pm the two day meeting at Aberystwyth (officially Ceredigion) kicks off with the first race of 31 spread over both days.

To say I’m looking forward to it would be a massive understatement. Last year the meeting fell foul of the bad weather and the committee were forced to move to the hard track at Amman Valley. Unfortunately many owners and trainers didn’t support the venue change and the committee had no choice but to cancel. A smaller meeting run by Amman Valley Trotting Club was then arranged at short notice, and was surprisingly well supported (a bit of a kick in the teeth to the organisers of Ceredigion, who work their socks off to put on good quality and competitive racing).

This year (and I tentatively say this as I don’t want to jinx it), the weather has held up and so far we haven’t lost a meeting due to rain. What’s even better is we are on the brink of what the weather forecasters are calling a ‘heatwave’. I know from experience that if it’s warm at home, it’s even warmer in Aber! The track is located right by the sea (you have to walk past the paddock and over the brow to see the sea) and in the shadow of Constitution Hill, or as my father calls it, ‘Constipation Hill’. As The Boss is only taking one horse – Jingo – I’m not needed around the box, which ties in well with my plans as now I’m going to be clerking for Smarty again. Thankfully he’s already told me I’m entitled to roughly an hour’s break mid-afternoon to go and drink with my friends – what he doesn’t realise is he’s given me permission to therefore be drunk in charge of a computer afterwards!

I’ve been looking forward to this meeting so much that I booked our hotel room roughly six weeks ago, for tonight and tomorrow night. I’m meeting Smarty and his friend Patrick who flew over from Ireland yesterday to see his Thoroughbred race at Perth, and heading over to Aberystwyth after I finish work. Even though the racing doesn’t start until tomorrow, and theoretically Smarty could have travelled the six hours down tomorrow morning, he and his Scottish friends have all decided to travel down today instead and because of the lost meeting last year there’s a real party atmosphere building because people haven’t seen each other for a while. I have Irish friends who are heading over today on the ferry and I can’t wait to see them tonight!

Three years ago tomorrow I went out in Aberystwyth after the races for the first time. I’d been for a meal with The Boss and Mrs B, Cecil & Mary (Mac’s owners) and Mervyn & Isobel (Sammy, Hamish & Bongo’s owners). That year the meeting was spread over three days; we had taken a horse called Loden Scoot on the Friday and travelled back that night. On the Saturday we took Sammy and a horse called Hoparound, but as Hoppy wasn’t racing until the Sunday we dropped him off at the Equine College in Aber (where we were staying) before taking Sammy racing. I left the meal with an old (he won’t like me calling him that) drinking friend, Ashwyn, and we headed off to the Pier. We’d literally walked out of the doors of the Marine when we bumped into an Irish girl and her father – Deirdre and Michael Goggin. We’d never seen each other before, let alone spoken to one another, but Deirdre asked where we were headed and then asked if they could join us. I have been good friends with her and her father ever since :)

That is the beauty of harness racing: it brings people together from all over the UK and Ireland. It doesn’t seem to matter that there may be hundreds of miles between us, and we don’t see each other at all between October and May, when there’s a big meeting on people will travel from their corner of the country to enjoy the racing and enjoy the partying afterwards.

This weekend has races catering for everyone – a trot, 2yo and 3yo races, maidens, novices, handicap heats and finals on both days. William Hill have taken an interest and are currently showing the ante-post prices for the finals on their website (Smarty may have helped somewhat with this *proud*), and Rasus, the Welsh-speaking harness racing programme on S4C are showing live races between 5pm and 7:15pm, as well as pre-recorded races from Aber and some races that were filmed at Cimery (I think). What’s more, this year they’ve added English commentary on the red button, courtesy of Grand National commentator Darren Owen (he called in Neptune Collonges for me last year!), which will cater for the Irish, Scottish, English and non-Welsh speaking Welsh folk that enjoy watching the programme. If only we could get an English language equivalent of the programme I genuinely believe we could tap into the wider public. After all, harness racing offers all the thrills and excitement of Thoroughbred racing, but at a fraction of the cost.

One last thing before I sign off; tomorrow will mark a tremendous milestone for one horse, who is a true ambassador for the sport and a perfect example of the durability and strength of Standardbreds. What About Me (Jiggy), trained by the Langford stables in South Wales and driven by Emma Langford, will race tomorrow for the 100^th time in his career. To celebrate this, I have submitted a small piece including a photo to be incorporated into the racecards over the weekend. Smarty and I also plan to ask the commentators to congratulate the horse and driver over the system tomorrow, as a gesture towards both Emma and Jiggy.

Anyway, this piece hasn’t served its original purpose of reducing my excitement at all, so I’ll leave it at that and go back to staring out the window at the blue sky and wishing it to be 4pm already.

For a really good write up from Kayleigh Evans, take a look at www.ceredrotian.com/en/news/story/all-roads-lead-to-aberystwyth

Over and out,

Sarah (very excited #1 Groom)