cheltenham | meet the team
cheltenham | meet the team
the going is good. . .
principal races of the day we were in the office at 6am, debating. ‘Hang on a minute’, I said, ‘why don’t we just look at running them all?’ “So by 8am we had come up with a plan to run all eight races from Wednesday on the Thursday and Friday.Then on the Friday we had the most amazing race, this titanic battle up the home straight by Denman and Kauto Star, and Denman won it. T hat was one of my most memorable days racing here. In 2009 Kauto Star won it back again – it was an incredible time and while it may seem odd to reflect on losing a day, we somehow turned what could have been a disaster into a sporting triumph because we salvaged everything.” Simon is full of enthusiasm for the future. “I see myself here as guardian of something that’s very special, continuing to provide the best jump racing in the world. We want to increase the international interest in the
racing here and continue improving our facilities to ensure we keep ahead of the competition with the experience that we’re giving everybody. “It’s quite a simple vision, we’re not looking to add lots of extra days here, Cheltenham is special because it doesn’t happen very often.” Clearly, Simon loves his job. “Who couldn’t love a job where you’re running one of the best sporting events in the world? It’s an iconic sporting event. “I have a passion for horse racing and horses and all the people that are involved. I sit in the most lovely setting here on the outskirts of Cheltenham under Cleeve Hill and it would be very difficult not to really love it. “I meet top-class sports people and I get to travel. My family love the locality, I wouldn’t contemplate going somewhere else. And it’s the characters you meet, people from all walks of life, including the royals. We’re all doing something we love here.”
bloodstock agents, are looked after. “Those are my customers – we want to make sure that their experience here exceeds their experiences everywhere else. From when they enter their horse until it runs and goes home they are looked after in the most amazing way. We look after them like family.” Simon is proud of the pro-active approach taken, whether it’s knocking a hole out of the stable wall for a fretting horse to see her stablemate from home, or having race winners’ brass stable name plaques engraved on site as they cross the finishing line. After 18 years in which he has overseen changes and improvements, one of Simon’s favourite memories is of triumph over adversity. “It was when we had that wonderful period with some top-class three-mile racers. Kauto Star came back in 2008 to defend his Gold Cup crown and it was the year that we’d lost the Wednesday at The Festival because of the wind. “We did something that was highly unusual. Rather than try to rearrange the
A s clerk of the course at Prestbury Park for more than 18 years, Simon Claisse isn’t quite a walking, talking weather- vane, but he probably can judge cloud formations in the blink of an eye and sense rain before a drop has fallen on a single Cotswold thatch. It is on Simon’s shoulders that sole responsibility rests for the going report for all 27 races during The Festival and all Cheltenham race meetings. He keeps a watchful eye on signals of inclement weather or otherwise in the jump race season, but his role is far more broad- ranging than simply checking the turf. Such is his knowledge that he was both character and consultant to author Jilly Cooper in her novel Jump!. Interestingly, Simon, an experienced point to pointer, raced in the Foxhunter Chase here in 1990, and he now tends that same strip of ground lovingly. “We run the Gold Cup, then the Foxhunters and then the Grand Annual so it only has three races on it in the season, then we fence it off and don’t use it for 12 months. I have been known to get down on my hands and knees and cuddle my grass because it’s looking so good! “The going report depends on when conditions are changing. Horses get entered five days in advance. When they make an entry, trainers are given the ground six days ahead, but in the winter it’s likely to change, so the key ones are really two days before race day. In the build-up to The Festival s i m o n c l a i s s e i s t h e m a n e v e r y o n e l o o k s t o i n t h e r u n - u p t o a r a c e . a n d d e c i d i n g t h e g o i n g i s j u s t o n e o f h i s j o b s a s c o r r i e b o n d - f r e n c h f o u n d o u t
“ From when they enter their horse... we look after them like family I might walk the course twice a day but that’s as much to make sure that everything is where I want it to be as it is to actually make an assessment of the going. But one is constantly watching the weather – we seem to be finding it more volatile, in that the forecasts don’t seem to be getting more Simon Claisse
accurate. You can only give conditions as you find them and give your best guess as to what’s going to happen. “Obviously out on the track we’ve got to make sure everything is safe from a horse and rider point of view. We’re quite unique as a track, you can’t lay it out as it’s going to be run from start to finish because there are intersections. We have to change things during races to make sure they go in the right direction.” Simon shifts his office, including the comfy Cheltenham Tweed covered office chair he inherited with the role, over to the Weighing-In room during The Festival. It is from this racing nerve centre that he and his team ensure that all the horsemen and horse connections, from trainers, owners, jockeys and stable staff to breeders and
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