- This topic has 11 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
It was all a dream.
Yet some people actually believed in a brand new racecourse where half the action was invisible from the grandstand.
Very bad management with an unrealistic, unsustainable business plan and a big ego.
Too much debt.
Great racing surface but poor, overpriced, facilities for those who did bother to go racing – number attending not enough to sustain the project.
That about sums it up.
As for the future – unless the BHA perform a massive u-turn (highly improbable) then it is unlikely they will race again before 2011 at the earliest – although there is theoretically a possibility a new owner could stage the fixtures planned for the latter part of 2009 – they would not get any fixtures for 2010. So why buy a course which will have a one year gap in its schedule?
I would say the chances of them not racing again are greater than them racing.
Assuming they don’t race again it occurs to me that it would make a good training facility. Off the top of my head can’t think of any trainers in the immediate area but perhaps as a relocation or ‘satellite’ yard(s) for the multitudes at Newmarket.
Polytrack gallops and brand new stabling awaits the enterprising.
I live about a mile away from the course and have to agree that, after attending three meetings, it was all rather shambolic. After briefly reading about the new course in wales it makes mewonder what could have been. I think it is definitly fit for purpose for a training facility of some kind, but wonder how it would pay? regards
Here is one way at looking at it.
See how long it took the build the Millenium Stadium and what people think of it then compare it with how long Wembley took and what people think of that.
Great Leighs took a lifetime and is now shut and Ffos Las has taken a few years but no fixtures got moved and everything is built and ready to race.
The Welsh can do a much better job than the English without doubt.
1. Lack of grass
2. Lack of jumps
3. Lack of class.ie Nobody wanted the fecking thing in the first place
And there was no lack of other racecourses.
We need new racecourses like we neeed a hole in the head.
Tom,
Seventy three posts so far – and every single one of them complaining, whingeing, sour, miserable and negative.
Is there anything about racing you actually like or approve of ?
AP
Well said, AP.
Besides which, Great Leighs
did
– and would still now – meet some recognisable needs, with no Rules racecourse having existed in Essex since Chelmsford’s demise in the 1940s and none of the existing all-weather tracks providing much for the longer-striding animal.
For the time being at least, history should judge Great Leighs the course and Great Leighs the operating site / company as two separate entities. The former worked beautifully, the latter did not.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Not for the first time, and I am sure not for the last, Mr Grayson is spot on.
Heaven knows I am no fan of AW racing but even I am prepared to admit the track at Great Leighs was by far the best and fairest.
Neil….i for one dont like the millenium stadium. Cant presicely say why that was, but it lacks something. Most football supporters i know definately prefer wembley…not that ive been there myself i will admit
GL has been debated enough but as Grayson says, essex is starved of racing. If my area (SW london) can support Sandown Windsor kempton epsom and Ascot (let alone Newbury and lingfield) then theres got to have been a ready market amongst the jellied eel eating kray groupies
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.