It was a Derby day turned on its head at Øvrevoll. After five of the day’s 10 races the track chose to abandon the rest of the card, and that means neither the Range Rover Norsk Derby nor Marit Sveaas’ Minneløp (Gr.3) has been decided yet. Behind it all lay slippery turf and a double fall, and the jockeys did not want to ride on.
“Safety always comes first. The jockeys did not want to ride on slippery turf. Moving the races to the sand track is always an option, but on a day like this it would not have worked. That leaves us no choice other than to abandon the rest of the meeting,” said racing manager Ola Jakobsen in a comment on the abandonment.
Norsk Galopp’s executive chairman, Finn Kristiansen, offered an unreserved apology.
“We can only apologise. It is very sad that we had to do this. But the decision was taken with the safety of the jockeys and the horses in mind,” he says in a comment.
On Monday morning steps will be set in motion to find out why the track was slippery on both bends. At the same time Kristiansen stresses that the day’s accident cannot simply be laid at the track’s door.
“As I said, safety will always come first. The accident in which Our Bear brought down Want Want had, however, and as far as I understand, nothing to do with the track. The five remaining races, including the Sveaas race and the Norsk Derby, will be staged on Tuesday with the first off at 16.50. We will make sure that those races are run safely and properly. And again: this was sad, and we can only apologise to everyone who was at Øvrevoll on Sunday,” Finn Kristiansen states.
The five races still to be run are the Polar Cup (L), Marit Sveaas’ Minneløp (Gr.3), the Range Rover Norsk Derby, the Alti Stayerløp and the Frederique Constant Ladies & Gentlemen Cup.
Fresh declarations must be brought for all of them, and Øvrevoll will return with more information.
The Danish horses stay at Øvrevoll until Tuesday, and so, in all likelihood, does the German Sommersby, who is entered for Marit Sveaas’ Minneløp.
That keeps the door open for both the Danish Derby winner Cosmopolitan and Lord Of The Moon to meet in the Norsk Derby after all, a race that had 13 horses in the original field.
Before the abandonment Niels Petersen had won the first three races of the day with Carlos Lopez in the saddle – among them the Norsk Kriterium with Romanov – while Cathrine Erichsen and Frida Valle Skar took the Lanwades Stud Fillies and Mares Stakes (L) with Irish Lioness.
