Something I enjoyed putting together
for my old blog was reviews of the courses I visited. Although they were a lot of fun, I never
really pulled them together in one place.
So I’ve taken on a hefty project to start things off on my new site. There are 29 courses I’ve visited, and below,
I’ve marked them all out of 70, and ranked them. This is a lengthy post, but hopefully it’ll
be a useful reference point to anyone thinking about heading to a new
course. Dip in and out, or search by course name, that's my advice. I love the variety of courses and I'm always happy to chat to anyone searching for the right course for them!
First, though, I should explain
what I think makes a good racecourse – this is because any ranking like this is
going to be very subjective. If you
don’t care about what I care about, you’ll need to adjust my rankings
accordingly. The seven categories (all
marked out of 10) are:
Racing quality: Pretty
obvious. You can have a good course with
ordinary horses (Plumpton) or a bad course with great horses (Doncaster). However, one thing that makes a day memorable
is seeing great racing and wonderful horses.
That’ll happen more often at Ascot than at Hexham. Them’s just the facts.
Course views: Again,
obvious. I don’t go racing to watch on the
big screen, I take my binoculars and expect to be able to follow a race in
detail based on that and the commentary.
At Sandown, you don’t miss a stride.
At Windsor, you have no idea what’s going on until the final furlong, if
then.
Paddock & pre-parade:
Important to me, because I love to paddock watch. I spend more time between these two sites
than everywhere else on the course. There are a few aspects to this one: can
you get near the pre-parade (big black mark for Kempton, which is otherwise
great, and another nail in Nottingham's coffin)? Are the horses put first in the course design (Goodwood’s
pre-parade features a practically vertical drop that is unsafe and
unsettling)? Can you see clearly even
when the parade ring is crowded (the only thing that stopped the Rowley Mile getting
a 10, now that they've finally resurfaced the pre-parade)? Is it a nice environment (the
July Course and York have paddocks that, even on busy days, are calm and rather
pretty. Newbury just has an oval)?
Clientele: I don’t like a lot of
my fellow race-goers. There are certain
meetings I will never attend again, and it is nearly always because of rowdy
drunks. I’m not insisting on everyone
being posh and a horse lover (I’ve had a great time at courses like Fontwell
and Perth, which feel more like local fairs) but I do really dislike the
‘busloads of drunks’ phenomenon.
Northern courses (in particular Doncaster) seem peculiarly prone to
this, but the 2011 Epsom Oaks (southern, and posh, so I’m not totally biased - and believe me, I want to love northern racing)
is the worst I’ve ever seen. Apart from
drunks as a negative, families having fun are a positive, and so are keen
race-goers and respectful fans.
Food and drink: This is another
obvious category. I don’t do racecourse
restaurants. All I’m looking for is
decent value for money, non-dangerous food, and bars without ridiculous
queues. Bonus marks for allowing me to
take my pint wherever I want, for providing real ale, or for really good
sausages. Yes, I’m being subjective.
Je ne sais quoi: There’s a lot of
other stuff that makes up the enjoyment of a day. Some courses are just stunning (Goodwood, I’m
thinking of you). Some are incredibly friendly
and full of charming staff (Perth
springs to mind). Some just fade totally
from the memory, whether big or small (Newbury and Huntingdon are very ‘blah’
indeed).
So what haven’t I marked? Well, value for money is missing, but I think
it is incorporated through everything else.
I say this because I have gone through my rankings and, well… they’re
right. They say what I want them to say. I have my favourites and my least favourites, and that is reflected in the scores.
So, here are the rankings. For my favourites, I’ve added some more
detailed comments as a separate post, together with some silly "awards".
Course
|
Racing Quality
|
Course views
|
Paddock/pre-parade
|
Food and drink
|
Clientele
|
Public transport
|
Je ne sais quoi
|
Total (70)
|
Sandown
|
9
|
10
|
8
|
8
|
7
|
8
|
8
|
58
|
Plumpton
|
5
|
9
|
8
|
6
|
8
|
9
|
7
|
52
|
Goodwood
|
8
|
7
|
7
|
8
|
7
|
5
|
9
|
51
|
Pardubice
(Czech Republic)
|
7
|
3
|
8
|
10
|
9
|
4
|
10
|
51
|
Newbury
|
8
|
8
|
8
|
6
|
7
|
10
|
3
|
50
|
Newmarket
(Rowley Mile)
|
10
|
6
|
9
|
7
|
7
|
5
|
6
|
50
|
Ascot
|
10
|
8
|
7
|
4
|
5
|
9
|
6
|
49
|
Newmarket
(July)
|
8
|
6
|
8
|
6
|
7
|
5
|
8
|
48
|
Fontwell
|
5
|
5
|
7
|
7
|
9
|
6
|
8
|
47
|
Lingfield
|
5
|
5
|
8
|
7
|
7
|
8
|
4
|
44
|
York
|
8
|
7
|
8
|
6
|
4
|
6
|
4
|
43
|
Epsom
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
6
|
3
|
41
|
Windsor
|
4
|
3
|
7
|
8
|
6
|
7
|
6
|
41
|
Hexham
|
3
|
7
|
5
|
5
|
8
|
6
|
7
|
41
|
Kempton
|
6
|
7
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
9
|
3
|
41
|
Ripon
|
5
|
7
|
7
|
8
|
4
|
3
|
7
|
41
|
Woodbine
(Canada)
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
8
|
3
|
7
|
5
|
41
|
Carlisle
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
8
|
5
|
5
|
40
|
Perth
|
6
|
4
|
7
|
4
|
8
|
3
|
8
|
40
|
Cheltenham
|
9
|
5
|
6
|
4
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
39
|
Yarmouth
|
3
|
7
|
7
|
8
|
6
|
5
|
3
|
39
|
Brighton
|
3
|
5
|
5
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
38
|
Doncaster
|
8
|
6
|
6
|
5
|
3
|
7
|
3
|
38
|
Wetherby
|
6
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
4
|
4
|
4
|
38
|
Huntingdon
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
2
|
37
|
Towcester
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
8
|
2
|
6
|
37
|
Warwick
|
5
|
5
|
6
|
4
|
7
|
5
|
3
|
35
|
Nottingham
|
4
|
6
|
3
|
5
|
6
|
5
|
3
|
32
|
Folkestone
|
2
|
5
|
3
|
2
|
5
|
8
|
3
|
28
|
Eddie’s
non-racing titbit:
This
is a joke that annoyed my mate Dan (on twitter, and well worth a follow @chalkbeater)
enormously. So I thought I’d share it
here:
A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Amal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later Juan sends a picture of himself to his Mom. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband she wishes she also had a picture of Amal. Her husband responds, "But they're twins -- if you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal."
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