Valet reflects on Thurles 'catch-up' Jockeys’ valet Robert ‘Nuggie’ Rusk today reflected on yesterday’s meeting at Thurles where a delay due to fog was eventually caught-up by some diligent work from racecourse staff. The first race went off on time at 12.15pm, in thick fog, but the second race was then delayed by 32 minutes as conditions briefly worsened. Racecourse staff then worked to ‘get back’ the lost minutes and in the end succeeded in running the final race at 3.27pm, just two minutes later than the advertised race time and despite a false start in the finale. Well known valet Robert ‘Nuggie’ Rusk today said “it was like any other day for us but we kept things going as quickly as we could and everyone worked together. To be fair, all the jockeys were very cooperative and a lot of credit must also go to Clerk of the Course (Lorcan Wyer) and the Clerk of the Scales (Pat Malone). “Also the groundsmen deserved credit too as they had two fences down the back to taken out and in the end we were just two minutes late for the last race.” By Tom Weekes
