Haydock Brawl Overshadows Great Day Of Racing

This weekend saw some superb racing that really does show why there are so many fans of the sport and more specifically national hunt racing as the best horses around were let loose and us some breath taking performances.

Haydock Park was one of the venues that showed off some classy Grade 2 contests and the Grand National Trial setting up a perfect day of jumps racing that gave us some indicators for both the Cheltenham Festival but also the Grand National meeting at Aintree in April.

However, the day was masked by a very unsavoury scene that saw a clash between racegoers and mass brawl break out spilling out of the stands onto the members lawn.

This was devastating for Haydock, with one of the biggest race days of their season and it all going to plan with great racing but overall it will be remembered for this barbaric fight that saw families and toddlers nearly seriously hurt.

The course have described itself as "extremely disappointed" at the brawl that broke out and have issued a zero tolerance approach to anyone involved in the incident that occurred on Saturday.

Haydock on Saturday night saw itself getting unwanted media attention from news outlets but also saw itself trending on Twitter with a race goer capturing the brawl live as it happened and posting it for the world to see.

The fight saw a bunch of males, with a round 10 or twelve of them throwing punches wildly with the courses security and staff trying to deal with the situation but it escalated very quickly.

A Bench was knocked over in the process with it spilling out near the bookmakers stands. Luckily for other race goers no one was harmed from outside of the fight with a toddler and woman seen to be very close to being wiped out by the men.

(Credit Racing Post) A Haydock spokesman said on Sunday: "We are extremely disappointed by the incident, which is completely out of character with a jumps fixture in February.

"Our security teams were on hand to bring this under control and eject those involved, and we had ample security to do so.

"We involved the police, who we are continuing to work with on this matter, and those involved will be banned from Haydock Park and all other venues in our [Jockey Club Racecourses] group.

"We take a zero tolerance approach because there can be no place for this type of behaviour in British horseracing."

This stance from the course was backed up by an RCA statement on Sunday, which read: "The RCA strongly condemns the appalling behaviour of a small group of racegoers whose actions have taken the shine off a fantastic Saturday of racing.

"Racecourse stewards and security teams are trained to detect and close down crowd disturbances in the rare incidents when they arise, as was the case at Haydock Park.

"Police are present at race meetings across the country where they deem it necessary, in consultation with each racecourse.

"The RCA enjoys a close relationship with the police via the Horserace Police Practitioners Forum, which enables us to share intelligence relating to events with our members.

"As the first major sporting partner of Drinkaware, the RCA and its members are committed to promoting responsible drinking, and a national campaign has been activated since 2015."

This is obviously not the first time a brawl has took place at a racecourse with Ascot and Goodwood both suffering last year in the summer of the flat racing season and up to this point racecourses had took extra measures to prevent this type of thing from happening.

However, it is not as easy as that and with testosterone, gambling and alcohol sometimes there is nothing you can do to prevent these things from happening.

Overall it gives the sport a bad name and taints the fan base but also the progression of the sport every time something like this happens and it is now for the appropriate governing bodies to put more measures in to alleviate this becoming acceptable at other tracks in Britain.