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GC makes a good point with regard to how time consuming it can be to get there, the ring road can be a nightmare. It’s only about 20 miles for me to travel but as I am travelling from the other side of the city it can sometimes take nigh on an hour to get there! I could probably get to Towcester quicker which is over 50 miles away. Nevertheless it’s a pleasant enough experience and whilst the hurdles track can be very soft the chase course is rarely worse than good to soft and you do get the odd decent sort turning up. The straight is a fair one with 4 fences on the chase course and three hurdles so plenty enough time to get yourself in position. I’ve often thought in the winter it might be worth them doing a Towcester and try free entry to see if they could improve the crowd but being the anti-social person that I am becoming I wouldn’t want it to get too busy
Not bad prize money today but unfortunately for not much reward in the quality column.
Wasn’t always the way. A few months ago I looked at the careers of some horses that I remembered from the early 70’s. The likes of Alu Alu, Anthony Watt, Bighorn, Canasta Lad, Maid Of Lorien, Matchboard, Mocharabuice, Phaestus and Titus Oates all turned up at Leicester. No doubt there were plenty more. A completely different ball game these days. Maybe someone else can confirm when the rot set in?
I’d possibly start the bidding at the early-mid 1990s, if only because the better hurdling events at the track had all gone by then.
The Thorpe Satchville Hurdle was run as a 2m conditions hurdle up to and including November 1994, but was changed to a 0-130 Class C handicap the following season. A shame, though as the roll-call from its last few renewals will attest to both the quality and quantity could vary a touch:
1994-5: Vasiliev beat Mole Board and Royal Derbi (3 ran)
1993-4: Cultured beat Simpson; Royal Derbi 4th (6 ran)
1992-3: no race
1991-2: Propero beat Montpelier Lad and Forest Sun (3 ran)
1990-1: Lumberjack beat Bitter Buck; Mole Board 5th (7 ran)
1989-90: Ryde Again beat Milford Quay (4 ran)
1988-9: Celtic Shot beat Nebris (5 ran)The 2m4f Golden Miller Novices’ Hurdle run at the track in late January/early February either lost its Listed status or had it relinquished between the 1990 and 1991 renewals, reverting to a common or garden event by the latter date. All this, despite the 1990 edition falling the way of Regal Ambition, winner next time out of the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle at the Festival.
I’ve not been able to go through more than one season in any depth over lunchtime, but for information the below is a list of well-known names to have raced at Leicester during the 1988-89 jumps season, the oldest to be included in full on the Post’s results archive. I have deliberately included only horses either at or around their peak, or still at a formative stage of their careers, so the likes of Cima pottering around in chases when past their best haven’t had a look-in.
Presented without comment – I’ll leave you to decide whether this is an especially long list considering there were 11 jumps fixtures (all six-race cards, I think) at the venue that season.
1988-89 season
==============
Remedy The Malady
Run For Free (as a 4yo novice hurdler for Andy Turnell)
Celtic Shot (winning the Thorpe Satchville Hurdle at 1/6F)
Bradbury Star (as a juvenile hurdler for Tom Kemp)
Suluk (hurdling debut, still a year before Fibresand!)
Winnie The Witch (as a 4yo plating hurdler for Tockie McKie)
Seagram (winning a handicap chase as an 8yo off the modern day equivalent of 117; future disqualified Mildmay Cazalet Chase winner On The Twist back in fourth)
The A Train
Gainsay (pipe-opener over hurdles)
Givus A Buck / Sure Metal / Royal Athlete (the first three home in one 2m novice hurdle)
Toby Tobias (won two novice chases here in successive weeks)
Charter Hardware
Young Benz (winning a novice hurdle)
Rinus
Willsford (winning a novice chase)
Boraceva (winning a novice chase)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.
Plenty of decent names. Obviously, Jenny Pitman was a big supporter. Think she might have been born in Leicester or at least that area?
Yep, she’s a Leicestershire lass (Hoby, not far west of Melton Mowbray).
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.
In that golden period of the 80’s and early 90’s, the track was supported by plenty of runners from David Nicholson, Jenny Pitman, Tim Forster, Charlie Brooks, Kim Bailey and others located around Lambourn.
But as the big trainers have become based in the M5 corridor, the likes of Hobbs, Nicholls and Pipe prefer to use the courses up the M5/M6 for ease of access. Those three between them have had less than 40 runners at Leicester in the last five years – of which Nicholls has provided just three. With the two main M4 based yards, Henderson and King, also using the course sparingly, the quality has gone.
The only question is which came first – did the loss of interest from the major stables force the course to downgrade their program, or did program changes persuade the trainers to look elsewhere.
I used to go to the all chase meeting in late February every year in the early to mid 90’s, but the combination of falling quality and the terrible traffic eventually put me off.
My mother was at Leicester races the day I was born
Come on, Tim, we’ve got to have the story behind this! Must have made the local paper at least?
Fair points made on the geographical locations of trainers, and, perhaps the travel difficulties around Leicester. The track could probably make quite a difference, without having to upgrade races or seek better prize money. I get the impression that owners and, sometimes, trainers get comparatively shoddy treatment from a number of tracks.
I wonder if a course like Leicester would benefit from having someone dedicated to building relationships with trainers and owners, and making sure they got better treatment on racedays than even some of the grade 1 tracks offer, along with regular communication. If you make owners and, especially, trainers feel special and highly valued, I suspect prize money would not be a big deal on many occasions. I’m not saying they’d get a field full of superstars, but I’d bet they’d get a few good seasonal debutants and the odd decent one making a comeback, and a general rise in the mid-tier quality too.
I wonder how many people realise that when it comes to going descriptions, this is the racecourse I find with the biggest diversity in the going allowances I calculate.
For example at yesterdays meeting 09.12.15:
Hurdles -1.00s/f (heavy)
Chase +0.00s/f (good)It makes you wonder how this is possible.
Mike.
I wonder if a course like Leicester would benefit from having someone dedicated to building relationships with trainers and owners, and making sure they got better treatment on racedays than even some of the grade 1 tracks offer, along with regular communication. If you make owners and, especially, trainers feel special and highly valued, I suspect prize money would not be a big deal on many occasions. I’m not saying they’d get a field full of superstars, but I’d bet they’d get a few good seasonal debutants and the odd decent one making a comeback, and a general rise in the mid-tier quality too.
In the same week that Kim Bailey singled out Leicester as the worst course he knows for its owner hospitality experience, this advice could hardly be more timely.
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.
I wonder how many people realise that when it comes to going descriptions, this is the racecourse I find with the biggest diversity in the going allowances I calculate.
For example at yesterdays meeting 09.12.15:
Hurdles -1.00s/f (heavy)
Chase +0.00s/f (good)It makes you wonder how this is possible.
Mike.
Isn’t it due to the hurdles course being extensively watered throughout the summer while the chase course isn’t?
I’m a pretty regular visitor to Leicester and enjoy the course.
However, coming from South Warwickshire is now basically impossible with the mother-and-father of all roadworks (ends Autumn next year) around unavoidable Coventry followed by the hack through the Leicester ring-road. It’s a three-hour trip at the moment!
The chase course has always come up with decent ground, even in wet conditions. I presumed this was due to a slight downward camber across the width of the course?
Mike
My mother was at Leicester races the day I was born
Come on, Tim, we’ve got to have the story behind this! Must have made the local paper at least?
I was incorrect Joe, having spoken to my mother this morning she was actually there with my father the day before, taken later at 10.00pm to hospital and I arrived the following afternoon.
I wonder if a course like Leicester would benefit from having someone dedicated to building relationships with trainers and owners, and making sure they got better treatment on racedays than even some of the grade 1 tracks offer, along with regular communication. If you make owners and, especially, trainers feel special and highly valued, I suspect prize money would not be a big deal on many occasions. I’m not saying they’d get a field full of superstars, but I’d bet they’d get a few good seasonal debutants and the odd decent one making a comeback, and a general rise in the mid-tier quality too.
In the same week that Kim Bailey singled out Leicester as the worst course he knows for its owner hospitality experience, this advice could hardly be more timely.
gc
How about a little consideration for the actual paying customer? It’s a good few years since I have been and I have only visited about half the tracks but Leicester was easily the worst. Maybe they have had a revamp of some sort since then? It was certainly needed.
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