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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.
Beware buying a hutch on Barton Bank Avenue as it will be prone to subsidence
Lee Motterhead is having a laugh. Since when is Kempton Park one of the most profitable racecourses? It has 2 decent days at Christmas, but after that it is a load of dross. At many of their almost daily all-weather meetings apart from owners, trainers and their staff there is hardly anyone there.
If these fixtures were lost the overall racing programme would look much better.Those running Kempton Park lost the plot the day they dug up their superb flat racing turf course. This was about as stupid as Brexit.
It profitable because of the media rights from all those sand pit meetings.surprised the JCR bean counters haven’t been looking at Sandown that sits on even more valuable land,needs updating and apart from a few days has poor attendance
If Kempton does go, it really wouldn’t be that much of a surprise to me if Sandown is next on TJC hit list as only Aintree and Cheltenham seem to get any love/financial support from them.
So the Tingle Creek, Bet365 Gold Cup and other jump races get split between Cheltenham & Aintree with the Eclipse and the other big flat races either off to a new flat course they reinstate at Aintree or the new AW course they build in Newmarket or er………Haydock?
If a course decides to close down a track why should they be allowed to transfer all their fixtures to another track of their choice? There is far too much racing as it is.
Time the BHA got their act together but wont hold my breath.I see its 16 quid for evenings , which seems a bit high , 22 for Saturday jumps ok in scheme of things . I saw a blog , Digitips , i quite like the content TBF but he was at Newbury and mentioned it was 40 quid the other day , thats seems way OTT .
Taunton another track ive been to a bit only 10 midweek , very fair .
Iam going three decent country days at races in next week , real good vibe oncourse , i think all three converted to UK about 15 quid total , plus a quid for a racebook .
Uk must be most expensive in world for entrance .It’s probably a lot more expensive now but we went to Arc day a few years ago and it was incredibly good value compared to here and there were free buses to the track. We only go to Kelso these days and get early bird tickets. Even our dog is made welcome and gets given a treat on arrival. I doubt if I’ll ever go to Cheltenham again.
I am afraid we suffer from corporate greed. I used to regularly go to the Cheltenham Festival March meeting in the 1960’s. I was there when Arkle won
In those days prices were high but reasonable and there was room to move. You could get a bet on with the bookmakers and retreat to the stand. Now the prices are sky high and you cannot move. like Moehat I will not be going back.
On top of the entrance fee I’m fed up of being elbowed out of the way when getting on the train and having to stand most of the way back ( something I couldn’t do now anyway).
After a mere two days high attendance at Kempton Park, the Racing Post is at it again moaning about the Jockey Club and demanding why the Jockey Club allowed Redrow to have an option to buy the place.
The answer should be obvious. Building houses thereby creating jobs while developing a new environmentally friendly comnunity is a far better use of land compared to a place where moderate horses race day after day for poor prize money. Land should be used effectively all year round, not just for two days a year.
Thanks to our cock-eyed education system we are not training enough plumbers, bricklayers, electricians, plasterers, metal workers and carpenters etc. I hope Redrow will increase apprenticeships when they formally buy the land.
So who do you work for Value 31? Redrow,The Jockey Club or the Government.
You do not belong on here you troll.You are not a racing fan.
Go away.Missisabella,
I am retired. I have never worked for Redrow, the government nor the Jockey Club. I am a racing fan. My favourite racecourse is York, followed the Goodwood. These racecourses are progressive with facilties and prize money increasing every year. I also like places like Ripon where they always provide a variety of racing
I used to like Kempton Park as it had the one of the best turf tracks in the country and it provided a variety of good racing which was worth following. Then they dug up this amazing turf and replaced it with an all-weather course. Interesting racing was replaced by mundane rubbish – low grade handicaps race after race; all designed to fill bookmakers’ satchels.
So I love racing, but not the fare currently provided by Kempton Park. The sooner it goes, the better as far as I am concerned
An ‘environmentally friendly community’. Fat chance of that ever happening! The vast majority of the native population are sick to death of watching large swathes of the
‘environment’ being concreted over. If you live in the South East you’d realise that the infrastructure is almost beyond braking point and what it doesn’t require is hundreds of thousands of more homes. And of course we all know the reason behind what’s fuelling this demand.Here’s an idea. Dig up Kempton’s AW course and replace it with a turf track. You could have some decent flat races on that!
I live in the South East, exactly two miles from Epsom Racecourse. The best bit is that the downs are covered by statute and cannot be built on. So there is no chance of Epsom racecourse being sold. That said, it saddens me that like Kempton Park the overall racing fare is appalling. Take out the Spring meeting and the Derby meeting and you are left with a mountain of dross.Attendance for the July meetings only gathers pace after the last race.
Now taking about Kempton Park. If they dug up the all-weather track, relaid the turf and went back to varied racing I would support it to the hilt.
The Jubile part of the old turf course I belive is still there (judging from a view from ITV racing cameras over Christmas) but if the JC haven’t supported Kempton (anywhere near the way they have done for Cheltenham/Aintree) since the AW track was installed then there is less then a snowball chance in hell that the turf course gets reinstalled.
Lets also not get it twisted about it being a must for building more affordable housing for people on the site, if Redrow get their way it will be nothing but high end housing and the only part of Kempton that will likely survive is the reservoir, as I believe it has been managed as a nature reserve since the mid 90s and is barred from public access.
I have been watching quite a lot of old (pre AW) Kempton flat races on YouTube and you see loads of racegoers lined right along the stands rails and you hear the roar on the commentary as well and it is rather sad when compared to their flat fare these days where the AW track is where the old jumps course was and so far away that you would hardly no there was any crowd in attendance…..people used to be on the inside of the chase course but you never see anyone there for the AW races (not even sure if access is available now).
I get that you can run races on the all weather track (almost) all year round but a lot of the soul of the racecourse exited stage left when the turf course got dug up……at least with ITV’s King George meeting coverage they have camera views pointing at the stands to show just how packed they were….clearly RTV could never do that as it would bring into stark contrast just how many people aren’t there.
The JC bang on about racing heritage being a huge selling point for British racing and listening to their constituents on what they want yet (the powers that be at the time) rather underhandedly sold a 10 year option rights to Redrow when their intial plan to sell the course got shut down due to the huge blowback from not only the local residents, the racing community at large but also the Council Kempton falls under.
Now they have left the new powers that be at the JC hanging in the wind to where they have no control over what happens to the course for the next several years, so even if they have changed their stance on selling Kempton, they will now be forced to sell if Redrow exercise that option.
The ‘its out of our hands’ comment just before Christmas from the JC on the future of a course they actually own is a sad inditement of their total mismanagement and tone deafness of the whole situation.
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