Great Leighs Opens At Last ?

On the contrary, the facilites will be very good from the coming week for racegoers, no different from any other other track and a lot better than some - though they are still limiting numbers for the time being as more space comes into use in the upper half of the stand [c3000/3500 this week]. Everything has been designed to a high standard.

They had no trouble selling £100 packages for both days and could have sold twice the 400 per day they did sell - and that was largely to people who'd been at the various invitation only meetings, so they were clearly happy with what's on offer.

Perhaps you might wait til you've been before making such sweeping statements :what:
 
If they're selling out at £20, more power to them.

Makes the £28 I paid for a ticket to the Oaks look an absolute bargain, though.
 
It certainly is... A badge for Newmarket on Guineas day giving all areas access was £40, at which I decided to stay home and watch on the telly! Irish prices are quite a bit cheaper than UK as I remember - my badge for Irish Derby day cost less than £30, that was the year Grey Swallow won

Jeff Randall's amusing article on current financial circumstances, and Great Leighs - he's Business Ed of the DT and lives down the road, and was one of the first to sign up as a member... it's a bit tongue in cheek!

It was a bit smarter than this in fact!

McGrath's article on the opening day, note the number of applications for membership! Day One

Sorry to sound such a Pollyanna, but it really does bug me that people keep knocking the place when they've had such a struggle, and expended so much money, to get it going - and when they are doing all in their power to make it a world class venue for the future. Someone has to put the other point of view!

And that's what they have in mind - a Grade 1 course with an Olympic standard Equestrian venue adjacent - and I see no reason now why they won't do it. But clearly they need to make *some* return on the millions expended - there's been no money in yet, at all, other than race entry fees and a little from betting and drinking.
 
I realise that, but if the place was crap and they were making a horlicks of things, I'd say so :P
I've partly become buddies not only because I admire their efforts, but because I can see FIRST HAND that almost all the knocking is unjustified. So I feel sorry for them - also I'd like to set the record straight, when incorrect info is posted, eg about the placing of the new road

Apart from that - I'm always on the side of those who get off their backsides and get out there and try to achieve something, over those who sit on the sidelines, and knock :nuts:
 
You have done a great PR job for Great Leighs, Headstrong, and I alrready feel I know the place quite well and I haven't even been there.

Keep up the good work! :)
 
Originally posted by Kathy@May 25 2008, 08:27 PM
You have done a great PR job for Great Leighs, Headstrong, and I alrready feel I know the place quite well and I haven't even been there.

Keep up the good work! :)
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Others seem to have a very different view....from The Times.

Great Leighs flounders in mud as public are sold short
Long-awaited launch is labelled an "embarrassment" as lack of amenities proves source of displeasure Alan Lee Racing Correspondent
In one respect, you had to feel sorry for John Holmes yesterday. So many millions invested, so much time waiting for this moment, then it arrived with such cruel, unseasonal deluges that Holmes spent the night before getting soaked, filthy and almost tearfully frustrated as he helped clear a flooded underpass. He did not deserve that.

But the creator and owner of Britain's first new racecourse since 1927 could not corner the market in sympathy. Much of it was also due to those who came to Great Leighs for its long awaited public launch and found it, in the words of one leading trainer, “an embarrassment to our industry”.

Jeremy Noseda, striding around the half-finished site with a look of incredulity, had more to add. “Britain has some of the greatest racecourses in the world but this is like going back to the dark ages. It's a good track to run horses round but you wouldn't want to bring anyone here. As a leisure experience, it's a disgrace.”

Noseda may have been the most distinguished and outspoken critic. But he was far from alone among the pioneer crowd in feeling bewildered and let down. One day, this could yet be a model 21st-century racecourse, a credit to its patron. For the moment, however, it is about as much fun for the paying public as a camping holiday in relentless rain.

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Wednesday's results
It was the three inches of rain since Sunday, not to mention the showers and glowering skies of yesterday, which finally scuppered Holmes's chances of a serene opening. But there was more to the defects than sheer bad luck.

Sure, Holmes and his team freely admit this is still a work in progress. But it was the lack of basic amenities that was so disenchanting for those of us who have consistently supported the concept. To feel you had anything approaching a good time, you needed to be among the 500 hospitality punters, who paid £100 each to dine amid mock palm trees then dance to Alexander O'Neill.

The general public, even at £20 a head, was short-changed. As John Silverman, a St Albans man who took a day off work, said: “It just doesn't feel like a racetrack. I came here full of enthusiasm and I'm terribly disappointed. I wouldn't come again.”

Silverman pointed to the inadequate betting and viewing areas in the limited public region of the centre-course stand. He might equally have criticised the absence of food outlets, other than a few catering vans on a soggy square of grass, the beer at £4 a pint, or the only big screen being positioned way beyond the winning post.

It is frightening to imagine how many pairs of shoes were ruined by the quagmires around the car parks and the paddock. If this was unavoidable, given the prevailing weather, Holmes appeared to have no cogent excuse for the delayed emergency vehicle access, which threatened the meeting with humiliating abandonment until 9am yesterday.

Paul Dixon, chairman of the Racehorse Owners' Association, was one of those inconvenienced by the late inspection. “I ran four horses here and they were already on the road,” he said. “I think the track here is fantastic but there is a fair way to go with the infrastructure and a lot of little things weren't right today.”

There are, in fact, so many big things still to be done, like getting Health and Safety clearance to use the top tier of the stand and give more people a proper view on a track everyone believes to be the best all-weather in Britain. Holmes still maintains that a turf course will follow by 2010. He also says it is “100 per cent certain” that he will build a permanent stand.

You have to admire his tenacity. He had been on site until 3am yesterday, then slept briefly before dashing back by six. He looked haggard. “When I got back and a hose burst on me and I was covered in mud, I could have cried,” he said. “But I'm a tough bugger and this is not going to beat me.”

Racing must hope he is right, but this was not the start he had spent so long anticipating.
 
Well despite the fact that it is the only UK course I haven't been to the negative feedback is enough to convince me further that it'll be a while before I visit the place.
Not until it is at least in a fit condition for spectators to go to (unless of course one of our syndicate horses runs there).
Then I'll probably force myself to go.
 
£20 admission (that's £3 a race!), £4 for a pint of beer, and a few crappy burger vans. At least the rain was free.

Is this what we've all been waiting for? What an embarrassment for the sport, as bad in its way as the Ascot fiasco.

A chance to showcase racing blown again.
 
What worries me with Great Leighs' underwhelming public opening yesterday is what I came to dub "Sportsman Syndrome", after the launch of that newspaper was compromised by typos, estimable Press Association data and some strange choices of leading articles.

Sweetly, simply put - as with the Sportsman, how many chances will Great Leighs get to make a first impression?

gc
 
A quote in the Guardian today from Pippa Cuckson ("Director of Communications"), responding to complaints about the £4-a-pint rip-off - "The beer prices are set by the caterers, so that is out of our hands".

You couldn't make it up, could you? (Or could you?).

Who is "Pippa Cuckson" anyway, and what are her qualifications for the job?

Let me guess: ex-public school, well-connected, not very bright, can just about go to the toilet unaided? Sounds like a job description for a racecourse director to me!
 
Pippa Cuckson was a journalist; she was editor of the Horse and Hound so I'm surprised you've not heard of her Venusian!

In all fairness, what do people who visit a racecourse, knowing it is still unfinished, expect? You get wet feet and mud at all tracks if it decides to rain, even Royal Ascot leaves the same result if the heavens open!
 
Originally posted by Colin Phillips@May 28 2008, 07:45 PM
He really is an ARSE of the highest order.
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In the interests of fairness, I have to say he had me (and several others) in utter stitches a couple of weeks ago when he neatly took the p*ss out of himself - it was done in a very funny way and wasn't false at all. Not many people can genuinely do a hatchet job on themselves unless they are doing it to gain attention in some way or are looking to have their mickey taking rebutted.
 
It is probably wrong to have a strong opinion on something you have no experience of, but, as Gareth suggests, to expect top-dollar for a course with limited views of the racing and where, reportedly, if you want to explore the racecourse you need seven-league boots!

It is rather surprising that there were people prepared to pay the £20.

Do we know what the actual paying attendance was?
 
"Not many people can genuinely do a hatchet job on themselves unless they are doing it to gain attention in some way or are looking to have their mickey taking rebutted."

Sorry, Shads, it is probably me, but could you rephrase that, as I'm not sure what you are saying.
 
Morning all :)

I also hope to visit GL once it's finished so to speak. The cards on Wednesday and Thursday were, I thought, reasonable for an AW meeting - equivalent to a winter Saturday at Lingfield.

The problem for GL is that IF they are trying to be England's Dundalk it won't be easy. It's all very well trying to put on cards with Class 3 and 4 events but the runners just aren't there in summer - there are lots of other options on the turf and the rain has made most turf reasonable (albeit slippery at times).

GL will, in my view, struggle to fill races if they are going to try and go up against grade 1 tracks like Goodwood on a regular basis and with Yarmouth also racing, there was a turf alternative not that far away.

The "quality" approach might work in winter but even then GL are up against Kempton and Lingfield who stage the best winter AW racing.

The alternative is to fall back on Class 6 maidens and handicaps which at least are guaranteed to bring in the runners.

I'm surprised at the £20 admission fee - again, both Lingfield and Kempton are still at £15 generally - especially with incomplete facilities. I thought John Holmes was taking the michael a wee bit there. His £100 guests were obviously where the time and attention had been lavished.
 
When you consider that you could have seen two group races and two listed races for an extra fiver at Sandown last night it soon became a no contest.
 
Ok Gareth, I'll rephrase that - if people have already bought their ticket, knowing whilst doing so that the place is unfinished, what more do they expect?? It seems a no brainer to me, not least the moans about getting wet and muddy feet - you get wet and muddy feet at Ascot if it rains, for God's sake!!

I guess £20 seems steep to some people and I can see why although since I don't tend to pay to get in and on occasions I have paid to get in I've paid a minimum of £20, often more like £40, sometimes £75 to get in everywhere, I don't really consider £20 especially steep to go racing.

Colin, I've re-read that comment many times and it makes perfect sense to me. It's not especially hard to understand - if a person takes the p*ss out of themselves they are usually doing it with the ulterior motive of either drawing attention to themselves or trying to draw rebuttals and/or denials from people that that is what they are like. It's not often that they just do it for a laugh. It's like the classic "oh I'm so fat" which is so often said to either draw attention to themselves or have people come straight back with "of course you don't look fat".
 
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