Weathering the Storms
The extreme rainfall seen over the winter has challenged many groundsmen, none more than at racecourses. Jane Carley catches up with some of the worst affected tracks and hears how they are progressing into spring.
York
When it comes to water inundation, the team at York Racecourse consider themselves relatively lucky, as racing manager and raceday clerk Anthea Leigh comments: “We don’t suffer from overall flooding – it’s just a couple of areas such as the one and a quarter mile start and the main crossing near the rear of the saddling boxes.”
Historic flat racing course York is situated on the Knavesmire, a flood plain of the River Ouse, with a wetland area adjoining the track itself.
Water enters not by the River Ouse bursting its banks, but rather by pushing up into the drains which are designed to carry rainwater away from the land.
“After flooding in 2008-9, six Penstocks were installed as part of a major drainage and irrigation project, which prevents the river water backing up into our drains, but high water levels still affect the ability of the land to drain.”
“Water comes from the culvert designed to drain into the Ouse, back through the drains and out of manholes in these conditions,” explains head groundsman Adrian Kay (pictured below). “When I started at the racecourse, I was told flooding was a one in 100 year event, but it’s happened a few times since then!”
Monitoring water levels helps make best use of the Penstocks – they are closed when the river reaches 2.6m above its normal level and only reopened when this drops to 2.4m. At this point, water held in the drains flows back out in the river.
While winter flooding is a frustration, as it hinders work for the flat season ahead, today’s more frequent flood events are a greater concern.
“We can’t race if in flood; despite the drainage we can’t guarantee a race meeting will go ahead after exceptional rain as we can’t get on the course to prepare the surface,” Adrian points out. “Also, as the water recedes, silt sits on top of the turf on the low lying areas. But equally, we need the water to move as quickly as possible, hence the investment in drainage.”
Its effectiveness was proven when the course flooded in September, but York was able to race a month later.
“As the water doesn’t generally sit on top, the turf is not submerged for long. The main task is tidying up afterwards,” comments Anthea.
Further investment in drainage was made in 2015-16, when the city of York was underwater and the home straight was flooded, as it had been previously in September 2012 and in 2005.
An important part of the winter workload is rodding drains and examining the system to look for breaks.
“The drainage is very well maintained,” comments Anthea, “Adrian and his team also carry out a programme of ongoing annual maintenance which can include excavated sand slits, the use of a Koro Top Drain, and top dressing with sand, which all helps to keep the drainage system connected and ensures the movement of water away from the racing surface.”
“However, the ground remaining saturated meant that we were not able to get on to carry out drain jetting over this winter, so it was delayed until March,” comments Adrian.
While the Knavesmire befits its name long after the flood waters have receded, the track itself has returned to normal, and despite some holdups to the programme, preparations proceed well towards the start of the new season.
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SOUTHWELL
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Southwell clerk of the course David Attwood is no stranger to flooding, having previously officiated at Huntingdon, while the Nottinghamshire track has also been underwater a number of times.
Storm Babet caused the adjacent River Greet to overflow and submerge the track on 21st October, leading to the cancellation of seven all-weather and one turf fixtures, as David explains: “We have flood defences and schemes in place, but the exceptional amount of rain left 60cm of water on both the turf and all-weather tracks.”
Such an inundation of water can affect the integrity of the Tapeta surface, so once the water had gone down it was inspected by Southwell’s agronomist. “He saw no difference in the performance of the particles that make up the surface, but there was a layer of silt on top, so this was effectively ‘peeled off’ and the Tapeta regraded.”
The turf track, however fared less well, he comments, “We are still seeing the impact of the high moisture levels in the soil some three months on. Any rain is highlighted further – at New Year, we had 16mm which the track would normally cope with, but this year it became waterlogged.”
The high soil moisture has also prevented the groundsmen from getting back onto the track to carry out decompaction or apply fertiliser.
“Fortunately we have a slightly different racing programme this year, so there will be more time for renovations. We usually race every month, but have no fixtures in July, August or September, and a busier programme through the winter. This will allow for planned drainage works to take place, and we will need to get on with fertiliser and carry out a programme of decompaction.”
The racing surface had recovered sufficiently for racing to restart on 28th November,
although meetings had a very different feel initially. Site buildings were under 1m of water, affecting everything at ground floor level, including the stables.
Equine accommodation was back in use by 24th November after pressure washing and steam cleaning, but the hospitality facilities, offices and weighing room were out of action until the spring.
Flood attenuation work carried out after the 2012 inundation included new dykes and ditches, plus flood banks next to the river, and while the river has flooded since October 2023, this mainly affected a purpose developed wetland area, and the defences did their job.
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HUNTINGDON
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Huntingdon Racecourse suffered the blow of losing its biggest race of the year, the Peterborough Chase, to the flooding that hit East Anglia particularly hard in the autumn.
An early task after Storm Babet passed was to clear up debris deposited on the boundaries of the track.
“We were fortunate to have additional staff from other Jockey Club Racecourses such as Newmarket to help,” comments clerk of the course Roderick Duncan. “There was also a layer of silt on hard surfaces, which makes everything slippery, and we pressure washed to move it.”
After previous experiences, the team at Huntingdon use advance warnings from the Environment Agency of water levels upstream to clear away as many items as possible – such as wooden bypass markers - that might be caught up in floodwater.
The track, however, takes flood water well. Jockey Club Racecourses has invested heavily in drainage improvements, with outflows from ponds into ditches into the River Alconbury so that water can be carried away from the turf as soon as river levels go down.
“We do note that the area in front of the grandstand gets compacted due to the weight of the water that gathers in that area, so we aerate quite a bit.”
A major flood defence project was instigated as part of the planning permission to extend the stableyard – a flood wall for the new block and a clay bund around the rest of the yard.
The flood attenuation area included a large wetland development that Roderick says ‘went above and beyond what was required’ and has had a highly positive impact.
“High water levels returned in November, when we could expect the stables to be flooded, and this helped to avoid it.”
“We’ve also added a water attenuation tank so that we can pump water out, at a compliant rate and at an appropriate time,” says Roderick.
Improving water uptake is another action by the racecourse, establishing 6000 hedge plants that will use moisture and help with flood control.
Environmental impact of water movement also impacts on groundcare, he explains,
“We have to be more flexible with fertiliser applications and ensure that we are not putting it on when there’s a risk of it being washed away and nitrates entering watercourses.”
Roderick says that while repeated flood events continue to affect Huntingdon, the impact of improvements and a lot of hard work are encouraging.
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STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
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After flooding on 2nd January, Stratford Racecourse saw flood waters recede quickly, but in the 48 hours the track was inundated, a considerable impact was made.
“The mess and debris made a lot of work,” explains clerk of the course Nessie Chanter. “Water entered the buildings so the carpets have had to be lifted and there was silt residue everywhere.”
She notes that the water came in with such power that it shifted three permanent steeplechase fences. “We were only able to move them back when the freeze up came – we borrowed trackway from Warwick and, due to a significant effort by our head groundsman Sam Linley and his team using two forklifts, we were able to replace them without removing all the birch, which would have been a huge task.”
Compaction was another issue – Nessie explain that a cubic metre of water weighs one tonne, so vertidraining as soon as the surface was fit was an important task. “The silt affects the sward’s ability to utilise nutrients, so we will need to apply fertiliser earlier than usual, although the vertidrain helps with uptake.”
With the first meeting of 2024 at Stratford scheduled for Monday 11th March, the main issue is the delay to preparatory work. “It’s frustrating,” says Nessie. “The track was clear of water within 48 hours, but it was weeks before we could get on to do any work; we had further flooding in February which added to the workload.”
With the track situated right next to the River Avon, flooding to a varying degree is a regular occurrence, and there’s little that can be done to prevent it.
Water comes in on the second bend, but investment in drainage means that it is carried away as soon as river levels fall. “One outlet was very low so nothing would shift until it had gone right down,” she recalls. “But we found some old Victorian culverts and diverted the drainage into those so we don’t have to wait as long.”
“On the upside, our proximity to the river means that we have a very generous extraction licence. Even in the prolonged drought of 2022, it was more than ample.”