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I see that Brighton have cancelled their next two meetings.
I am probably overreacting but I fear for the racecourse.
Dear Annual Member,
I am writing to you today to apologise for the delay in starting the season at Brighton, to give an explanation as to the reasons behind this delay, and also to set out what we are proposing to do with regards to compensating you on this issue.
As you may have read, we are currently having issues with areas of the track. These issues revolve around the presence of leather jackets (crane fly larvae) and nematodes, both of which destroy the roots of the grass.
In conjunction with our independent agronomist, we are implementing a robust schedule of works to restore the racing surface to its usual excellent standard and are aiming to resume racing at Brighton on the 29th of May. We will of course update you as the works progress.
As core supporters of the racecourse, we cannot overstate how highly we value the loyalty of our Annual Members, and we of course do not wish you to be financially impacted by this issue. We are therefore proposing to extend your membership to the end of May 2027 and will also pro rata next year’s payments to reflect this extension.
In the meantime, we would like to remind you that your membership also provides access to all 15 other Arena Racing Company racecourses, should you wish to enjoy racing elsewhere. Additionally, your updated 2026 reciprocal list can be found here.
On a personal note, and on behalf of the entire Brighton Racecourse team, I would like to say how sorry we are that this situation has arisen, and assure you that we are doing our utmost to resolve it as soon as possible. Once we are up and running again, I would like to personally invite you all to lunch and will send out invites once we have a date.
I look forward to seeing you all soon.
Regards
Paul
Executive Director
Bath had a problem with leatherjackets a few years ago but that was resolved.
On “Luck on Sunday” yesterday, Dan Skelton said Chepstow had a problem with them as well.
It sounds like the Brighton management are confident they can sort it out and the track will be back up and running soon. I hope so because it is a distinctive track and a pleasant venue in the summer.
We had a Leatherjackets infestation on our lawn several years ago and in a matter of a week or so we went from having a fully covered lawn to being able to count the remaining individual blades of grass that were left standing…….at the time it was devastating and soul destroying especially considering that we had no clue what the issue was or how to deal with it.
Fortunately there was a solution in the form of the Leatherjacket version of Nemasys which is biological control product (it comes in various coveraging options) that you mix with water and apply to your lawn with a watering can and the added bonus is that it does not affect children, cats and dogs or other pets.
We had to apply it several times over several weeks and then re-seeded the whole lawn afterwards – it worked really well and we were back to a full lawn of grass pretty quickly (although we also had to put netting down to stop all the birds from eating the seeds). We do see odd grubs from time to time and when we do we immediately order the Nemasys and apply accordingly (I am actually about to do an application in the next few days) and touching all available wood we have never had the problem of a bare lawn since.
Depending on how big an issue Brighton have I don’t envy the task ahead of them but wish them all the luck in the world that they are able to get this issue under control and back to race asap.
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