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Jim here. Glad to be of service. I posted a few times on TRF many, many years ago and stopped when I didn’t have anything interesting to add.
One of the minority-interest subjects I am working on is that of old race names and where they came from. Things like the Temple Stakes – which temple? Today there are Sweet Solera and Rose of Lancaster Stakes- who were they? They tend to disappear over time and I thought it would be nice to help preserve them somewhere other than in dusty old books of results.
Taking 1982 as my base at random, I am working through about 800 race names, having excluded local villages and sponsors from the list. Just a few paragraphs on each one is my aim, and it’s taking a long time! I will probably put it online eventually in the style of Jockeypedia. If anyone fancies chipping in, please let me know. The more obscure the information, the better.
When you’re on the beta site, click on Home and then scroll down to the bottom left. It’s there you’ll find the link that takes you to the old site.
Thanks for the replies, everyone. But if the third place/each way bets were the bookies’ concern why not reduce the odds of the other six runners even more?
I know bookies aren’t obliged to offer prices and we aren’t obliged to bet. But by declining to price the second horse at around 3/1, they deprived themselves of some profit; a few people might have taken on the favourite at 3/1, but surely nobody would at 9/4.
Let’s hope it’s not the thin end of some wedge designed to inflate their overrounds more often.
Sitting next to my dad watching the racing on TV, especially the jumping, started me off. Picking Highland Wedding, the winner of the Grand National (when I wasn’t as old as the horse) gave my interest a boost, and later that year my parents took me, at my request, to Brighton races. Next year we went to the Epsom spring meeting. And the year after, and then to a few other courses.
I thought nothing could be more exciting than Crisp’s Grand National. I was really hooked, and as patriot1 said, National day was the best day of the year.
I didn’t exactly make a racecourse toy, but I created my own racing game by drawing steeplechase courses and each horse moved along however many tenths of an inch a roll of a dice came up with. If it landed on the line of the fence it was a faller. Perhaps I should see if John Hales will buy this idea.
Thanks for the commendation, Jeremy, and for the news about the Buckfastleigh book; I must get a copy. There is a steady trickle of books about racing and racing history that go under the radar because they’re done on a shoestring. Sales wouldn’t be sufficient for a major publisher to be interested, so they’re often self-published. Marketing is necessarily limited, and they often don’t appear in shops like Waterstones because of the big discount they demand. If a potential reader misses the one day that a review appears in the Racing Post or in the local paper they’d never know of a book’s existence.
Here are two recent examples. An ex-policeman called Ken Brooke has just written a book about Beverley and the Yorkshire courses. He’s donating some of the proceeds to charity. Another chap called Andrew Ager has recently published The Blood Is Racing, about the Day and Cannon families of 19th century trainers and jockeys. Some of the Days had a bad press at the time and Andrew has attempted to show why this may be unfair. You can find them on Amazon.
At the probably justifiable risk of being accused of self-marketing, my 1999 book “The Croydon Races” on the once-important defunct 19th century course is available via Amazon at a modest price. Over the years there have been books about others – Oswestry and Wrexham come to mind – and I gather one about the old Chelmsford course will be on sale before long. There was an article in the Racing Post a few years ago, and I think some of it is still traceable.
There are footpaths alongside the finishing straight of Lewes racecourse. Alexandra Park is walkable – the loop is very distinct. Tall trees grow where the stands used to be. The Richmond course in North Yorkshire remains, with a couple of 200-year old buildings. Newmarket’s old NH track on the southeast side of the A1304, circling the Links Golf Course, is I believe still used as gallops. Try looking for these in Google Earth.
If you want to actually see and touch the books before you buy, High Stakes Bookshop near Euston/King’s Cross in London has a fair selection about racing but specialises in books about gambling.
For books solely about racing, Tindalls in Newmarket High Street; RE & GB Way near Newmarket – but check with them when they’re open; Marlborough Books, which trades at assorted courses in the south and west and sometimes further afield; and the two bookstalls run on racedays by the Suttons in the Members’ Stand at Newbury and at Cheltenham. There may be others in the north that I don’t know about.
Online, the Ways and browzers.co.uk have large second-hand catalogues. Perusing them you realise what a vast number of books have been written about racing.
William Pitt the Elder, acknowledged as effectively PM in a coalition government, had runners at Bath (his constituency) in 1759.
The Marquess of Rockingham was PM in 1765-66 and 1782. He owned racehorses, notably Whistlejacket, the subject of Stubbs’ famous painting.
Palmerston owned horses for a long time before he was PM, including the winner of Bath’s big race in 1826, the Somersetshire Stakes. I expect he owned others during his time in office.
The PM in 1838, Lord Melbourne accompanied Queen Victoria to Ascot but confessed that he hadn’t been there since he left Eton 42 years ago.
The camera at Fontwell used to be in the members stand but that has been demolished to make way for a new one. There’s nowhere suitable on the next stand along, so a temporary tower in the centre of the course, where the stewards also watch, has been built. The new stand is meant to be finished by late August and the normal camera position will be restored.
I was at Brighton for an Arab race meeting about seven or eight years ago when an 18 year old horse won a 5f sprint. I saw Sonny Somers win over jumps at the same age at Lingfield in the 1980s.
Other 18yo winners, according to The Complete Record, a splendid source of NH statistics, were Wild Aster over jumps; and Revenge, Marksman and Jorrocks on the flat, the latter winning 65 races in Australia in the mid 19th century.
I know that the manager of one track which has about 22 fixtures would prefer 15 because he simply cannot get enough people to come to all of them. In practice he concentrates his marketing on days he is likely to get people through the turnstiles, but he still has to mess around and make efforts on the "excess" days. Those other days still pay their way normally, thanks to the payments for the TV pictures.
Having more and more race days makes them less and less of a special occasion. Goodwood have had about seven days racing already, whereas in the good old days it would have been two or three.
I haven’t kept up with all discussions on this in the last few months. Does anyone know if the news archive from before 2006 will ever be restored? I hope no one’s pressed the Del button.
The outline of the track at Richmond in Yorkshire was still clearly defined a few years ago when I was last there – probably used as gallops but definitely good for dog walkers too. The ruins of the 18th century stand could still be seen.
I always thought the racegoer who visits two or more courses a total of say 15 or 20 times a year isn’t rewarded for their regular support of racing. He or she doesn’t want to go to any one course often enough to make the purchase of an annual members badge worthwhile, but will clock up a good number of visits in a year to a number of courses.
Some kind of multi-course season ticket where for perhaps £200 you can get entry to twenty meetings, at whichever venues you like, or £300 for thirty, is my suggestion. That might have to be limited to exclude Saturdays or Festivals; whatever it is should be as uncomplicated as possible.
I know you get £3 off most fixtures as a Racegoers Club member, but I doubt that’s big enough to affect anyone’s decision whether to go racing or not, whereas I think a season ticket like this would encourage people to go a bit more and use up their ration of twenty or thirty.
There’s a new book advertised in the TRF Classifieds, which blatant self-interest makes me point out.
Just in case …. when you get to Gare du Nord, don’t queue for a ticket to Champ de Courses d’Enghien at the main ticket office. There is a smaller one for the suburban SNCF "Transilien" trains like the one you want. I can only describe it in terms of coming off the Eurostar platform. Turn left, and walk for some way past the open platforms on the left, and eventually there is a ticket office with about six windows and a single-queue system.
Or use a ticket machine!
Trains are every 15 minutes and the journey time 17 minutes. You can see the course from the station. Have fun.
