Racing came perilously close to a calamity on Saturday evening, and had events unfolded differently after nine runners set off for the most valuable race of the night at Chelmsford, this column might well have opened with the words “Racing is still in shock …” instead.

The start of the Essex track’s 8.30 race was entirely unremarkable, but what happened next was, in the words of a racecourse spokesperson, “unprecedented”. The tractor used to pull the starting stalls off the track failed, and the gate was still in the middle of the home straight as the runners began to turn for home with their riders starting to stoke them up for the final run to the line.

Related: It’s a one-horse race at Exeter as only runner trots home alone to take prize

It is a tribute to the smart reactions and professionalism of all concerned – including the starter, who ran down the course with a warning flag to alert the jockeys on their way back around – that all nine managed to pull up before reaching the stalls.

There was also a decent measure of good fortune involved. As Harry Davies, who turned in fifth aboard Intricacy, told the Racing Post, “they were all good horses with good mouths who responded quickly to us. Younger or more inexperienced horses tend to run with their blood up and can’t always be pulled up so quickly, so we were lucky in many ways.”

Alistair Rawlinson, who turned for home in second place, agreed. “It could have been a disaster,” he told Racing TV. “I was filling my lad up and I saw the starter, who had ran from the stalls, because there’s been a problem, into the middle of the track. I saw the flag, looked up and the stalls were still there and let out a yell.

“We did miraculously well to stop because there were some keen horses in there and we didn’t go overly fast, so to stop that quick, the lads deserve a pat on the back.”

Lingfield 11.35 Moon Over The Sea 12.05 Turner Girl 12.35 Al Shababi 1.05 Jet Black 1.37 Lady Dreamer 2.07 Meribella 2.40 Iken 3.15 Drifts Away 3.50 Phoenix Moon

Bangor-On-Dee 12.25 Heroique De Maulde 12.55 Shecouldbeanything 1.25 Celebre D’Allen (nb) 1.55 Adaay Forever 2.25 Junker D’Allier 3.00 Oh My Johnny 3.35 Lemoncello 4.05 Minella Rescue

Ayr 12.45 Kandor 1.15 Evaluation 1.45 Balranald 2.15 No Regrets 2.50 Fourofakind 3.25 Castle Carrock

Southwell 4.30 I Can Imagine 5.00 Aquacell 5.30 Grey Salvo 6.00 Primo Lara (nap) 6.30 Rose Light 7.00 Stroxx 7.30 Arc Zoosve 8.00 My Boy Jack 8.30 Irish Dancer

So, a potential catastrophe was – narrowly – averted. But amid the relief, there were immediate questions as to how and why it had proved impossible to stop the race sooner. “We should have had more of a warning,” jockey Marco Ghiani said. “In my opinion there should be a flag man in each corner of the track. If we were halfway down the back straight, we would have known and stopped more safely.”

The British Horseracing Authority is, as you would expect, inquiring into the circumstances surrounding Saturday’s incident, but it seems that there was simply no time to get an official with a flag to the back stretch or far turn before the runners arrived. Thankfully, the starter had the presence of mind – and fleetness of foot – to get himself just far enough down the course to attract the riders’ attention in time.

But more generally, it also seems fair to wonder why the procedure for stopping a race still depends so heavily on people waving flags in the first place. In France, as the trainer Daniel Kubler pointed out, “they have sirens and flashing lights” to alert riders that a race needs to be stopped. Had such a system been in place at Chelmsford – which is, in many respects, one of the most up-to-date tracks in the country – the field would probably have pulled up before halfway.

There would, no doubt, be a significant cost attached to updating the systems – or, for that matter, to taking up Ghiani’s suggestion of a flag official at each corner – while the precise issue encountered on Saturday is, admittedly, vanishingly rare. In a majority of Britain’s 6,300 annual races on the Flat, after all, the field does not even return to its starting point.

Sedgefield 12.05 Suitably Surprised 12.40 Malinka 1.15 Natural Ability 1.50 Winds Of Winter 2.25 Zwicky 3.00 Clean Getaway (nb)

Market Rasen 12.20 Typhoon Flyer 12.55 Rula Bula 1.30 Kelce 2.05 Eyed 2.40 Bread And Butter 3.15 No Worries

Taunton 12.30 Jet Of Dreams 1.05 American Land 1.40 Tuxedo Junction 2.15 Tout Sur Moi 2.50 School For Scandal (nap) 3.25 Linda Moon

Chelmsford 5.00 Mrs Dowley 5.30 Needlepoint 6.00 Extrication 6.30 Cassandraalexandra 7.00 Kessaar Power 7.30 Fantasy Master 8.00 My Turn Now 8.30 Global Resolve

But an urgent need to stop a race as swiftly as possible, perhaps for a reason that was impossible to foresee, is inevitable from time to time. Older readers, meanwhile, may recall that a failure of the flag system was a factor, at least, in the void Grand National in 1993, which was British racing’s most devastating financial and PR disaster of recent decades.

Thirty-one years later, it was still thanks in large part to an alert official with a flag that another potential calamity was narrowly avoided. Next time around, we may not be so fortunate, and the high drama at Chelmsford on Saturday should surely be the moment when the sport finally brings its systems for stopping a race into the 21st century.