Racing delayed for over an hour at Newbury due to medical incident on course
RACING at Newbury on Saturday has been delayed for over an hour after a member of the medical staff was taken ill.
Runners for the 2.10 race, which was the second contest on the card, circled at the start for several minutes but they returned to the parade ring when it was clear something was wrong.
Screens were put up by the fence on the far side of the course where the member of the medical team was based, and they were quickly attended to by on-site paramedics.
Sky Sports Racing reported an air ambulance has been called to the track.
And a public announcement was made on course at around 2.50pm, which stated they were awaiting the arrival of a critical care team, but track chiefs are hopeful racing will resume.
The BHA posted an update on X, formerly Twitter, which read: “In order to allow sufficient time for the medical cover to get into position, all runners will return to the parade ring.”
Chief steward Richard Westropp told the Racing Post: “We’ve got a slight delay.
“There’s an ambulance man being attended to on the track and, because of his situation, we’re unable to have the medical cover to follow the field round, hence we’re bringing the runners back to the parade ring.
“We’ll have to wait until the ambulance takes him off the track, and I’m not sure what the situation is with that.
“When we resume entirely depends on how long they take to treat him. That’s all we know at the moment and everything is on hold.”
Harry Cobden, who is leading the jump jockeys’ championship, was due to ride Onethreefivenotout in the 2.10 race.
He said: “We went down there and the ambulances have rushed off to the other end of the course.
“There’s obviously an incident with someone and we were down there for five or ten minutes, and the horses were getting warm.
“They sent us back to get the weight off the horses back as we don’t want to be down there for 30 minutes walking round. We know as much as that.”