Great Leighs or not so Great Leighs?

Yesterday heralded the first meeting of the new Race Course Great Leighs, which is a Floodlit all weather track, located in Chelmsford, Essex. Many would think that this is a good idea of having a new race track, but the first meeting was Private and for members only, so if you wanted to watch the racing you could not.

The first meeting that will be open to the public is May 28th-29th. With this track being an all weather course this means that there can be racing all year round and night racing also. However this normally means that there will be plenty of Banded races, which is for horses who are not good enough to win in a normal handicap because they would be out of the handicap by a long way. Also the more racing there is then there will be of less quality, which would you rather watch the four day festival at Cheltenham, or all weather racing?? The answer to me is I would sooner have less supply, which would lead to better horses running more often and the prize money being better, as opposed to being more races and the monies being more widespread.

I think this contributes as to why we are so behind other countries such as USA, France and Ireland when it comes to breading horses, there are far too many bad horses in bad races who are running constantly to make ends meat for their owners and trainers.

This problem could get even worse with talks of there being a Race track in Salford and in Wales in the near future.