Musselburgh target £100k race

MUSSELBURGH has revealed plans to take its biggest Flat races of the season to a new level next term, with general manager Bill Farnsworth making it his ambition for the course to soon stage its first ever £100,000 contest.

The Totepool.com Edinburgh Cup meeting on Saturday was another resounding success, with around 7,000 spectators flocking to the East Lothian course for a top quality card, which also included the Totescoop6 Scottish Sprint Cup.

However, Farnsworth revealed that next season he intends to divide the two showpiece races, with the Edinburgh Cup remaining in its traditional Derby day slot in 2013, and the Scottish Sprint Cup headlining a new fixture pencilled in for the Saturday after the popular Friday night “Ladies Day” meeting in June.

The motive behind the new approach is that Channel 4 have indicated that they will not be able to show any of the Derby day races from Musselburgh live in 2013. Next season is the first year that they will be showing the Classic from Epsom, having snatched the broadcasting rights away from the BBC, who showed the Derby for the last time on Saturday.

Channel 4’s intention is to show uninterrupted coverage from Epsom on Derby day, so any other meetings in Britain will not be included in their programme that day. Farnsworth concedes that the knock-on effect for Musselburgh is that it will become difficult to attract sponsors to back their big races without television coverage. Undaunted, he is now ready to try the fixture rejig in order to give fresh impetus to the Scottish Sprint Cup.

The Scottish Sprint Cup was formerly the feature race on Ladies Day, before it was decided to move the latter to a Friday night slot, and Farnsworth believes that by moving the Sprint Cup away from its current position as chief supporting contest for the Edinburgh Cup to its own Saturday date, he can not only attract sponsorship but also Channel 4 coverage.

“My dream is to eventually make the Sprint Cup a £100,000 race,” he told The Scotsman. “We would still have the Edinburgh Cup on Derby day, then Ladies Day on a Friday night later in June, followed by the Scottish Sprint Cup on the Saturday. It would make June a tremendous month for Musselburgh and Scottish racing in general.”

Saturday’s Sprint Cup saw former Grand National-winning jockey Graham Lee again demonstrate how handy he is in his new guise as a Flat jockey, using all his strength to get Kevin Ryan’s Bajan Tryst up to deny Flash City, with last year’s 50-1 winner Burning Thread a gallant third and 4-1 favourite Racy, also trained by Ryan, finishing fourth to give a return to each-way supporters.

The winner was sent off 16-1, the same price as the victor in the Edinburgh Cup – Scatter Dice, who kept the prize in the hands of Mark Johnston, who had landed the 2011 running of the race with Eternal Heart.

Scatter Dice was the least fancied of Johnston’s five runners in the field of 12, at least according to how the bookmakers priced up the race, but he showed a tremendous will to win under Martin Lane to hold of Lee’s mount Clayton (7-1) by a neck. “It’s one of the biggest wins I’ve had,” said jubilant rider Lane.

On a tough day for punters, only one favourite won, the 15-8 shot Bosun Breeze.