Safety concerns grow at Wolverhampton after fifth death in a month

The safety of Wolverhampton's all-weather circuit is under scrutiny after a fifth horse in little over a month was killed at the track in dramatic pile-up that left jockey Tom Eaves with a broken arm.

Yesterday was the course's 98th meeting of the year, a record for a British track. Whether this hectic schedule was undermining safety was being asked last night.

Eaves was unseated from Fly Time after being hampered in the seller by Money For Fun, who appeared to break a leg.

The stricken filly also caused Aggbag and Put It On The Card to unseat their riders, while the Paul Hanagan-ridden Polly Rocket was brought down in the melee.

Hanagan was also taken to hospital - complaining of lower back pain - with Sonia Eaton, rider of Aggbag, who had brusing to her knee and neck.

All the other horses and riders emerged unscathed but last month John Egan stopped breathing for a minute when his mount Eccollo fatally fell.

Track officials have defended the track where a new £4million Polytrack surface was installed in September 2004.

Senior jockey and safety officer Dale Gibson called for action. He said: "Perhaps there is not enough time between fixtures to properly get their track A1 again and, maybe, something needs looking at to may be slow it down. For me, bad horses are running exceptional times. There are are too many horses going down.

"It's probably a combination of average horses, very tightly handicapped, all going round together, all trying to race on the same bit of ground.

"Unless there is suddenly a track bias to ride five wide, who is going to race wide?

"There's nothing worse than a fall, whether it's on turf or on all-weather. The problem when it's all-weather is that because it's tarmac underneath, we don't move. At least on grass you have a chance of sliding."

Wolverhampton is due to stage 110 meetings this year, a number boosted by the delayed opening of the new track at Great Leighs. Last year it held 80.

But clerk of the course Fergus Cameron denied the hectic schedule was a problem. He said: "We'll do everything in out power to maintain the track as a safe environment for horses and jockeys. We'll be carrying out our own internal review of what has been going on."

HRA course inspector Nicky Carlisle visited the course on Friday but an HRA spokesman said he would be checking the videos of all the falls again to see if a common denominator existed.