Great Leighs Opens At Last ?

Great Leighs future thrown into doubt

By Turia Tellwright9.46AM 16 JAN 2009
THE future of Great Leighs racecourse is up in the air after the track's temporary licence expired at midnight on Thursday.
A statement on the BHA website explained that a sub-committe of the BHA regulatory committee had declined to grant a further temporary licence.

Consequently, until a new application is made by the managing executive of Great Leighs, racing can not take place at the course.

The track had been operating under a temporary licence since January 1.

The racing department of the BHA are dealing with the Fixture List and racing administration consequences of this, although the Racing Post understands that Thursday's meeting will take place at Kempton.
 
Can't say I'm surprised,rumour mill for ages has been that the just don't have the money.
It stills resembles a bomb site as it did when I was last there in October.
 
Thing should be knocked down, seriously £15 entrance fee for that load of shite is beyond belief. The bloke who designed the racecourse should be fired and left to stacking shelfs, what a terrible piece of work this is, on par with the millenium dome
 
Seems a shame to just leave a racecourse empty though, surely someone will step in and sort it out?

Kempton will be getting more meetings then...
 
By PA Sport Staff
E-mail us your racing views now
Click here to enter our Tipster Challenge
Great Leighs has been placed into administration with Deloitte appointed to look after their interests.
Carlton Siddle, joint administrator and Deloitte partner, commented: "We have today (Friday) been appointed administrators and will be assessing the position of the group in order to determine the best outcome for its creditors.
"We will continue to work with existing management and key business partners to continue to trade the business in the short term.
"We are currently in discussions with the sport's regulatory body, the British Horseracing Authority, in respect of securing the course's racing licence and ability to continue to trade as a going concern while we investigate the opportunity of a sale."
Officials at the Essex course were forced to cancel their next scheduled meeting on Thursday evening, after their application for a temporary licence was declined at a British Horseracing Authority hearing on Thursday.
A statement on www.britishhorseracing.com explained: "The racecourse managing executive has been operating under temporary licences since January 1, 2009, the latest of which expired at midnight on January 15, 2009.
"An application at the hearing was made for a new temporary licence to operate until the end of January.
"The committee declined to grant a further temporary licence.
"The effect is that, unless and until a new application is made and is successful, there is no licence in place for racing at Great Leighs.
"The Racing Department of the BHA are dealing with the Fixture List and racing administration consequences of this."
Built on the 430-acre site of the former Essex showground north of Chelmsford, Essex, the track should originally have been launched in October 2006.
However, a series of hold-ups dogged the track until it finally opened its doors in April last year to become the first new British racecourse since 1927.
 
More from The Times:

Julian Muscat

div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;}The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) effectively shut the doors on Great Leighs yesterday when it refused to sanction an extension to the track's licence to race. The next scheduled meeting has been transferred to Kempton Park on Thursday, by which time John Holmes, who owns Great Leighs, will have submitted a fresh application.
Great Leighs was already operating under a temporary licence after its annual application was rejected in December. The BHA took the highly unusual step of issuing a two-week stay, but refused to extend it when that licence expired yesterday. It is understood the authority's licensing committee believed that financial assurances given on behalf of Great Leighs were not being met.
Holmes is optimistic that racing will return to the Essex venue later this month. “We are back at the BHA on Monday with a view to resuming racing from January 29,” he said yesterday. “We are going through a restructuring process but it has taken longer than we hoped.” The future of Britain's newest racecourse, which opened nine months ago, is thus uncertain.
Details of the restructure are expected to emerge next week, when it will become clear whether Holmes has recruited a new partner to invest in a project that has all but consumed him for the past five years.


Great Leighs has been stalked by controversy from the outset. After numerous delays to its start date, the track opened in April with a praised racing surface but precious little by way of facilities for the paying public. Minimal improvements have been made over the past nine months.
Four months ago Great Leighs fell into arrears over paying out prizemoney, which it addressed when pressed by the BHA. However, the failure of its licence application is believed to be unrelated. Nor are issues concerning the track's safety or performance the stumbling block - as they were one week before it opened in April, and which were resolved at the eleventh hour.
Racing at Great Leighs is managed by Arena Leisure, which owns or manages seven other tracks. Its largest shareholder is Trevor Hemmings but David and Simon Reubens, the property and investment entrepreneurs have steadily increased their stake in Arena, which now stands at more than 20 per cent.
Their investment prompted speculation that Arena would merge with Northern Racing Ltd, which the Reuben brothers bought two years ago for £90 million, and which owns ten racetracks. Soon after, Northern is understood to have made an offer to buy Great Leighs, which Holmes rejected.
 
I heard it was after they paid Sara's Photo's invoices and for Thommo's services.

The Great Leigh's budget just collapsed :)
 
Latest news, this just in !!.......


Fyi. We hope to race again on Jan 29, will keep you posted.


Sent on behalf of:

Jamie Harley
Co-Head of PR
Deloitte LLP
Direct: +44 (0)20 7303 5037
Main: +44 (0)20 7936 3000
Mobile: +44 (0)7818 457962
jaharley@deloitte.co.uk
www.deloitte.co.uk
P Please consider the environment before printing.
 
LOL all of you - you would all be laughing less if you knew even a little of the reality behind the story

John H is greatly to be praised for having got this far, and the stumbing blocks put in his way, starting with the by-pass being driven right through the site right where the stand was supposed to go, would have broken a lesser man long ago. I feel very sorry for him and one day when the full story comes out, so will a lot of other people. I hope against hope that he and his people can come throught his.

From the news story above, try to excercise your brains to grasp a tiny kernal of the reality behind the following, because someone is trying to tell you something here:

<< Racing at Great Leighs is managed by Arena Leisure, which owns or manages seven other tracks. Its largest shareholder is Trevor Hemmings but David and Simon Reubens, the property and investment entrepreneurs have steadily increased their stake in Arena, which now stands at more than 20 per cent.
Their investment prompted speculation that Arena would merge with Northern Racing Ltd, which the Reuben brothers bought two years ago for £90 million, and which owns ten racetracks. Soon after, Northern is understood to have made an offer to buy Great Leighs, which Holmes rejected. >>

I've tried to hint, explain, lead and cajole you all towards the reality of what's been going on, politically, behind the scenes, for some time. But it's easier to just mock and deride isn't it, from a position of total ignorance and disengagement, than to try to engage brain and understand what's going down here.

The fact that the cancelled fixture is going to Kempton is part of it. Go back to some of the things I've said on the "Kempton should be turned into a supermarket" threads.

God there are some stupid people in the forums, and in the media too.

By the way, and this is God's truth, my full earnings from the course to date are £400, and another £400 from external jobs carreid out for the course.
 
Well, I do think it is a great pity that the course is in such trouble, as the actual track appears to find a lot of favour with trainers and the horses run well on it. We do need decent quality AW racing in this country as it is a source of export opportunities for horses that do well on the surface to other countries - especially the US and it's shortsighted not to devote energy and funds into improving AW racing.

As to anyone being owed money when a business goes under, it's not something I'd wish on anyone.
 
I think a lot of people understand, and know, a lot more than you think they do, Headstrong.

You talk about derision whilst you're banging on about how stupid everybody is on these forums and throwing out insults, left right and centre!

Pretty much the bottom line is what a lot of us have known for a long time now - he money is running out fast.
 
Headstrong said:
LOL all of you - you would all be laughing less if you knew even a little of the reality behind the story

John H is greatly to be praised for having got this far, and the stumbing blocks put in his way, starting with the by-pass being driven right through the site right where the stand was supposed to go, would have broken a lesser man long ago. I feel very sorry for him and one day when the full story comes out, so will a lot of other people. I hope against hope that he and his people can come throught his.

From the news story above, try to excercise your brains to grasp a tiny kernal of the reality behind the following, because someone is trying to tell you something here:

<< Racing at Great Leighs is managed by Arena Leisure, which owns or manages seven other tracks. Its largest shareholder is Trevor Hemmings but David and Simon Reubens, the property and investment entrepreneurs have steadily increased their stake in Arena, which now stands at more than 20 per cent.
Their investment prompted speculation that Arena would merge with Northern Racing Ltd, which the Reuben brothers bought two years ago for £90 million, and which owns ten racetracks. Soon after, Northern is understood to have made an offer to buy Great Leighs, which Holmes rejected. >>

I've tried to hint, explain, lead and cajole you all towards the reality of what's been going on, politically, behind the scenes, for some time. But it's easier to just mock and deride isn't it, from a position of total ignorance and disengagement, than to try to engage brain and understand what's going down here.

The fact that the cancelled fixture is going to Kempton is part of it. Go back to some of the things I've said on the "Kempton should be turned into a supermarket" threads.

God there are some stupid people in the forums, and in the media too.

By the way, and this is God's truth, my full earnings from the course to date are £400, and another £400 from external jobs carreid out for the course.
Click to expand...

"What's going on behind the scenes"......clearly there is alot going on! But that was the same line you came out with when trying to justify why the racecourse was charging full wack (and presumably still were up to their recent closure) to gain access to what sounds like a building site.

BHA having to get after them late last year to pay their bills, unable to get a full licence, facilities for the every day racegoer sounding deplorable and that after all the delays of getting off and running in the first place. I am sure there are good people working behind the scenes and lots of efforts being put in - but for those without the "inside information" it just looks a mess and they cannot be blamed for thinking anything less.
 
I hope someone takes it on and in time, finishes it off. I like going to Great Leighs its miles better than the other all-weather tracks, in my opinion, and thats even in its current state. Despite what some people say it has improved alot since its opening.
So its a bit different to everywhere else and you can't see all the way round with the naked eye, but all these people that complain about that aspect will also complain if there isn't a big screen at the other courses they attend, they dont want to see all the way around there either, rather view on the tv and then watch the last furlong! So leave off the 'we want to see all the way round' when you dont watch all the way round anywhere else. Facilities for racegoers are currently no worse than many tracks around the country and facilities for the horses and professionals are top class.

It could be very good and I hope it survives. I would rather go there than any of the others, two of which are far closer to where I live and dont involve getting home at gone midnight!
 
Surely the possible loss of a racecourse should be met with disapointment rather than mocking/laughing at it,

IMHO it is a huge shame regardless of its apparent lack of facilities
 
As far as all weather racing goes I think Dundalk have done a great job.The main difference between Dundalk and other aw tracks is that Dundalk is there for the benefit of punters not the big bookmakers.
 
Well said UG - and he spends a lot of time there, as I have done.

Far from flinging insults around, I've merely been defending the course in the face of a lot of ignorant comment, much of it from people who've never been there. Facilities for racegoers are perfectly OK esp given the nonsensical way the County Council has done it's best to put obstacles in the way of ongoing devlopment

The course has been misreported consistently, as have the reasons for its problems - that's hardly their fault, it's more to do with the 'knocking' mentality of so many British people, seen so often I might add on racing forums

An C, I was told in a personal email today that photographers' rights are protected in this situation
 
Back
Top