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Back in the days when I used to buy a racecard, it often amused me to see messages from the Chairman of the racecourse wishing racegoers “an enjoyable and profitable day’s racing.”
If he was being honest, he would have wished everyone a losing day of racing. Because without the money the bookmakers have taken from losing punters, he wouldn’t have a racecourse.
I was once a Flat member at Kempton and we were very well looked after in the Clubhouse back in the day – this was well before the coming of the Polytrack.
I saw ENTREPRENEUR win his maiden – I didn’t know at the time I saw a future superstar in the same race – SILVER PATRIARCH ran eleventh that evening.
Despite all that, the truth is the land around Kempton is worth tens of millions for residential redevelopment – the site is very well placed with its own railway station and easy access to the M3. It’s a far more lucrative prospect than Hurst Park was back in the 1960s.
If it goes, why not spend some money on Huntingdon and move the King George there? It’s a right handed, flat track so why not?
The synthetic fixtures can go to Chelmsford which is under utilised and the turf jumps fixtures can be moved around – Windsor, perhaps thought that would mean ARC having to pay out?
As has also been said this week, a declining horse population is going to force cuts in races and meetings so losing the odd jumps fixture (whisper it quietly) isn’t going to make a lot of difference.
Lots of people here at Aintree today. If it is to be the new home for the King George, there will be no problem drawing a crowd.
There was 6,000 here on the previous two Boxing day fixtures. The first year might not have been that well advertised, while last year the meeting took place in thick fog – which must have put off anyone thinking of paying on the day.
I suppose the only qualification to make is neither Liverpool or Everton are playing today, which I expect has been to Aintree’s gain.
A potential issue of moving the King George to Aintree is the dreaded low sun. The 2.15, run just before the Kenpton feature, had all the fences omitted in the home straight.
It really shouldn’t be run at Aintree. They already have the Bowl.
Also, That would mean the Betfair Chase, King George, Gold Cup and Aintree Bowl would all be run at left handed tracks. Not really fair to horses who prefer going the other way around.
They can’t surely move it to Aintree As the King George is ie Kempton right handed course
Aintree left handed course.
Some horses thrive at going right handed better then othersVf x
I think Aintree has proved itself an unsuitable venue for a premier meeting at this time of year.
If they move it to Aintree then they better hope every Boxing Day is overcast otherwise it will end up being more of a 3m flat race.
17k crowd at Kempton yesterday shows that if you put on a decent card that isn’t low grade dross then the people will come, the RP spoke to a man who (ironically) had travelled down from his home in Liverpool on the train and he said the only thing that stops him from attending each year was train issues, obviously a mid week twilight fixture is a much harder sell but then most mid week racing is not going to get large crowds simply because a large part of the racing public are at work.
If the Jockey Club put even half the effort that they are putting into Cheltenham and Aintree then Kempton would be in a lot better position and its very future survival would notnow rest in the hands and the whims of whether a developer wants to build some luxury houses/flats that wouldn’t actually serve the need for affordable homes anyway. I wouldn’t even have put it past the JC to have purposefully neglected Kempton (post the AW switch) to make it more enticing for developers to come in with a big pot of money for its sale.
Lets also not forget that the JC have no other AW tracks in their portfolio that they could switch all of Kempton’s AW fixtures to if Kempton is sold….I very much doubt that the JC can finance an AW course at Newmarket (long mooted but with no current follow through) without using funds from a sale of Kempton, so would all those Kempton AW fixtures potentially be lost for good?
Itv said today that the kempton crowds where up on last few years. Shame as it’s classed as thriving greenbelt land that it’s come to this
VF x
Doesn’t matter how big the crowds have been the last two days as to Kempton’s future.
The more I know the less I understand.
Would Redrow want the publicity of being the company that built over such an iconic & historic racetrack that dates back to the 19th Century where horses such as Arkle, Dessie & Kauto have strutted their stuff?
Perhaps they don’t care and have no interest in racing but their name will be forever synonymous for building over part of racing’s rich heritage.
And this doesn’t mean that we should forget the role The Jockey Club and Government will have played in this.
An interesting piece by Lee Mottershead in the RP, especially the part about the low sun affecting Aintree compared to Kempton – for those who don’t subscribe it goes as follows:
After a fabulous festival the Jockey Club must explain why Kempton’s fate has been removed from racing’s control
It has been an awfully long time since the second day of this Christmas festival felt so festive. Following an extraordinary King George there could have been an anticlimactic air to Kempton. It was not like that at all. Just as on Boxing Day, lots of people made lots of noise at a venue whose Jockey Club owners were, in contrast, disappointingly silent.
There were factors in the track’s favour, not least helpful weather and a Saturday slot. Even so, it was wonderful to experience such a fabulous atmosphere, particularly given the worrying backdrop against which the meeting was staged. With tickets going on sale on Monday, we will be back for more in 12 months’ time. After that, all bets are off.
The breathless finish to The Jukebox Man’s King George was seen by 17,195 spectators, an uplift of 3,332 compared to last year. Desert Orchid Chase day attracted a crowd of 8,715, well in excess of the 7,156 total in 2024. Across the two days, Kempton has enjoyed a 23 per cent year-on-year attendance rise. In normal times one might say that augured well for the future. Unfortunately, and as has well been documented, Kempton’s future is horribly uncertain.
The public support was apparent in words as well as numbers. Robert and Tracey Lawton travelled from Staffordshire for the festival’s two afternoons, as they have in most years since the 1980s. Unlike the Lawtons, Mick Cole came from just down the road. He was angry in 2017 when the Jockey Club first revealed plans to close Kempton. He is now angry that his local course remains vulnerable due to the 2018 option deal that commits the Jockey Club to selling one of its most profitable tracks to housing developer Redrow, assuming certain conditions are met and planning approval is secured. Following the recent passing of the government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill, Redrow’s chance of securing that approval is much greater.
“It’s a complete disgrace and I’d chain myself to the gates to stop it shutting,” said Cole, while another Kempton Boxing Day regular, Nick Floyd from Devon, expressed his fear that resistance could be futile.
“It feels like it’s a done deal and that it’s a question of when it goes, not if it goes, which I think is very sad,” said Floyd, adding: “We were told a slightly different story a few years ago. The way things have changed is very disappointing.”
At times of such disappointment it seems reasonable to ask questions of those responsible for taking key decisions. When addressing the situation this month, Jockey Club chief executive Jim Mullen came out with what quickly became a famous line. “Kempton is out of my hands,” he said, referencing the 2018 Redrow arrangement and perhaps unintentionally also conveying the fact signatures were placed on paper long before he took the job.
There is, however, some continuity between then and now. Mullen’s boss Dido Harding was among those sitting on the Jockey Club’s board of stewards in 2018. When taking over as senior steward last July, she stated her number-one priority was appointing a successor to Nevin Truesdale, a task that was completed with the hiring of Mullen. “The number two thing on my to-do list,” she said, “is to really focus the whole organisation on properly listening to our stakeholders, our fans and our participants.”
Given what we know now, there is some irony in that statement. When in 2017 the Jockey Club first announced its intention to sell Kempton, the vast majority of stakeholders, fans and participants were vocal in their opposition to sacrificing the racecourse. The Jockey Club heard all that but evidently listened to none of it.
It would be wholly wrong to single out Harding for criticism but one significant frustration coming out of Kempton this Christmas has been the Jockey Club’s refusal to address key questions, including why the organisation agreed a deal in 2018 that tied the hands of future leaders like Mullen and left it powerless to actively resist selling Kempton, even if its opinion on the merits of a sale had changed.
The Jockey Club’s line this week has been that there is nothing further to add because nothing has changed. That was repeated with typical courtesy by Harding at Kempton on Saturday but at some point there must be some accountability.
One can only imagine how hard these last few days have been for those most closely connected to Kempton, whose sterling work and dedication to the racecourse has at least been rewarded with bumper crowds and superb racing.
Successful in two of those races was Dan Skelton, who on Boxing Day had been at Aintree, where Mydaddypaddy was turned over in a Grade 1 hurdle in which four flights were omitted due to the low-sun problem that regularly disrupts the track’s winter action. Fifteen minutes before the King George, Aintree staged a handicap chase over what would be the King George course and distance in the event of the showpiece ever being sent north. Ten fences were jumped, nine were bypassed.
In only one race this century – a contest for conditional riders – has low sun prompted the omission of jumps at Kempton, where indelible memories were made when The Jukebox Man emerged triumphant in that utterly mesmerising King George.
The great worry is that memories of Kempton may soon be all that remain.
I doubt it would concern Redrow. Not many people seem to care about racing’s heritage, unfortunately.
There is a long running thread entitled “Franco Dettori” in the Lounge concerning questions about racing asked on television quiz shows. More often than not, the contestants have absolutely zero idea about racing’s history.
I doubt it would concern Redrow. Not many people seem to care about racing’s heritage, unfortunately.
Don’t worry, I’m sure Redrow will offer us all the chance to spend half a million quid on a two and half bedroom rabbit hutch on Desert Orchid Way or Kauto Close. It’s what the great horses would have wanted.
I always think there’s something a bit eerie about the site of old race tracks ( eg the old stand outside Lincoln). Bit like the site of old hospitals. We had a housing estate built on the site of a hospital in my village and when it was being built a night watchman ran screaming into a nearby farm. Never did find out what he had seen!
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