Crackers

Fireworks at the races? Someone needs a rocket.

It was Sky - decades ago - who decided sport wasn’t exciting enough and needed jazzing up; this, after 50 years of brilliant but simple BBC coverage of football, cricket, the Olympics, boxing and racing.

Graphics and sound effects were added. The new boys needed to show they were different. Then live sport wanted to follow suit.

Fireworks are now common at big sporting events. It is a corporate view that these enhance the experience.

For reasons that must be Grade 1 obvious, no one had ever taken a pyrotechnic display to the races.

Until the Derby. Just after 4.30 pm, with 17 highly strung racehorses circling nervously behind the stalls, someone at the Jockey Club decided it was a good moment to let off a series of very loud bangs.

Chris Cook of the Racing Post had this to say: ‘It suggests a frustrating lack of faith in the ability of the Derby to entertain. The feeling that you’ve got to add fireworks just before they start the race … I‘ve written about how we should do more to make a day at the races more entertaining but (it) has taken us in a bad direction on this occasion’.

Cook’s colleague, Maddy Playle, said: ‘I didn’t think it made any sense whatsoever. Young, energised thoroughbreds, with jockeys on their backs … we do need to be responsible for them - and we let off fireworks in earshot. It doesn’t take a genius to say this isn’t a great idea’.

Adam Kirby, who won the race last year, felt his mount was affected by the blasts. ‘He didn’t appreciate it and it didn’t help him in the stalls either’ he said. Richard Kingscote, on Desert Chance, felt himself lucky. ‘I was fortunate that (the horse) was very chilled. I can’t speak for anyone else’.

Stable staff said many horses off the track were distracted by the noise and upset by it.

‘There was no warning and they were incredibly loud’ wrote Rosie Margarson, daughter of trainer George. ‘People don’t come racing for firework displays, they come racing for horses. Horses hate fireworks’.

The BHA was quick to point out that the black, acrid cloud drifting across the track was nothing to do with them.

The Jockey Club rushed out the following statement:

‘The Derby is the greatest flat race in the world and we will always aim to create a special atmosphere. The pre-race show was thoroughly tested in advance, and both timed and placed with our participants in mind. However, part of constantly striving to improve every major event is to evaluate - and we will take all feedback on board in our planning process for next year’.

If the show was planned with participants in mind, how was it that jockeys, trainers, racecourse staff and commentators were unaware of what was to happen until they heard the bangs and smelled the cordite?

And don’t fireworks only work (if that is the right expression) in the dark?