As a jump racing fan, this time of year is always very exciting as we start to see some of last year’s stars re-emerge such as Monet’s Garden who is a personal favourite, and last season’s top novices start on new careers such as Cue Card over hurdles on Sunday.  A couple of weeks back I visited Richard Rowe’s yard for his open day, and was delighted to see Andy Stewart has Tatenen and Watergate in training at Richard’s yard for the new season. We wish him, and all our local trainers, all the best for the coming months. We always watch the entries coming in with anticipation, hoping to see some promising types running here.

Nick Gifford is a trainer to follow at our October meeting, and he duly had another winner at the last meeting in the bumper with Bad Sir Brian who is owned in partnership by Betfair founder Andrew Black.  It was also good to see new trainer Alison Batchelor, based in Petworth, have a winner and second.      

We are all on tenterhooks this week as we wait to see what happens with the levy – Sunday is deadline day by which a settlement between racing and betting needs to be made or it will be referred to the Secretary of State for determination. At the moment we are unable to put together our programme of races from our Sunday 2nd January racemeeting onwards as we do not know what our prizemoney funding will be.   Hopefully we will get some clarity in the next 2 weeks. Please help support Plumpton’s and the racing industry’s case for a fairer levy return by signing the Charter at  http://www.racingunited.co.uk/.

As I’m writing this the sun is shining, and we all have our fingers crossed that the Indian summer continues until next Monday for the annual Moorcroft Racehorse Welfare Centre raceday.

Moorcroft is a charity that is very close to the hearts of everyone working at Plumpton, and it’s fundraising raceday is in its eleventh year here. The team, especially Lisa,  get very involved in preparing for the day as the centre is run on a skeleton office staff to keep overheads down so we help out with running and administering the day. There is a dedicated Raceday Committee who work tirelessly at getting auction items, selling tickets to the lunch and finding sponsors, who have done a great job this year.  All races are sponsored, and the lunch is a sell out.

Andy Stewart is a very generous supporter of both Moorcroft and Plumpton, and his charitable foundation is sponsoring the Shetland Pony race that takes place at 1.40pm. I recommend going to see the Shetland in the paddock beforehand, and watching the race itself as the 10 Shetlands thunder up the home straight under the colours of many leading owners.  Last year’s finish was one of the most exciting of the season!

Since the last racemeeting we have had confirmation of our fixture dates for next year, but are still awaiting details of levy funding.    More on these topics next time!

The summer has been and gone again and we are now in the very final preparations for the first racemeeting of the season. Marquees are going up, windows being washed, and the finishing touches and checks being made.

The course is looking a picture – a lush green carpet. The recent rain has done it the world of good, and Mark and his team have been busy over the summer with all the maintenance jobs necessary to get us back into shape after a long and hard winter last year.  Ray, our very handyman, has been permenently attached to the paint brush. We have also undertaken drainage works which should hopefully improve our chances of racing if we have a wet winter.

We had two new members of staff join us over the summer. Ross Craig has replaced Alan Greening as Groundsman, and may be familiar to many of you as he has been working on a casual basis on racedays for the last three years. We also have part time office help from Linda Lawrence, who has also helped us on racedays before by ferrying mascots around and the other random things you get involved with through working here.

We are all very much looking forward to racing here again and the season ahead, starting with Ladies Day on Sunday.

Countryside Day is one of my favourite of the year as I look forward to watching how much the Beagles and Hounds enjoy their romp along the racecourse.  My own dog Holly would love to take part – those of you who have visited the racecourse office outside of racedays will no doubt have been welcomed by Holly who comes to the office every day, and considers herself very much part of the team here. Shame she cannot answer the phone.

Though we are delighted the sun is finally shining and it truly feels as though Spring is here, we have also had to start watering from Wednesday. All is looking good for a dry and sunny day on Monday – the wet weather at Easter seems a long time ago!

The Grand National was particularly enjoyable this year, and we were all absolutely delighted for A P.  We were all cheering him home from 4 out, despite not having a penny on.  We are very lucky as a racecourse to enjoy the support of A P, Jonjo and J P McManus, and it was great to see A P get the wider recognition he so richly deserves.

The two day Easter Festival are Plumpton’s busiest racemeetings of the year.  In the lead up the office is  especially busy – with a team of 4 we do try to answer all phone calls quickly, and offer our usual personal and friendly standards of service. The website has been a big help this year as many people have chosen to book tickets online.

We are trying a couple of new initiatives this Easter. The first is an on site creche and Easter activity centre - with Easter Egg Trail, Arts and Craft activities, sporting games and Munchie the Rabbit.

We are also trying a new race on the Sunday, a £10,000 2 mile Handicap Hurdle and are happy with the quality and number of entries at this stage.  We are very grateful for the support of our local trainers such as Gary Moore, Sheena West and Nick Gifford, as well as those who have entered runners from further afield such as David Pipe, Philip Hobbs and Charlie Mann. We would like to further improve the profile of this race and meeting in future years – it is always a difficult time to stage more valuable races as Easter is usually very close to either Cheltenham, Aintree, or both. 

We also received delivery of Plumpton’s new horse mascot last week which we have put in training for the Children’s Trust Mascot Champion Hurdle on May 9th. Racegoers at Easter will get the chance to name the mascot and win a VIP day at the races- so get your thinking caps on!

We held our Cheltenham Festival preview dinner on Friday evening, sponsored by the tote. It was a very enjoyable night, with lots of great nuggets of info from Mark Winstanley, Andy Stewart, Nick Gifford and George Primarolo. There doesn’t appear to be much confidence behind Denman, and George was taking a view against both Master Minded and Dunguib at the current prices. Some of the darker horses given a positive mention were Loosen My Load and Barwell Boy.

The evening was  extended by a few drinks afterwards at the The Engineer pub in Brighton. They have won the Racing Pub of the Year prize, and it is very clear to see why. It’s a shrine to racing, with football relegated to it’s proper place. It’s definitely a great place to watch racing during the Festivals or on a Saturday afternoon.      

This is always a nervous week for our insurers, whose support along with SIS’s sponsorship enables us to offer the £60,000 Cheltenham Festival Bonus.  As it currently stands Bensalem is the shortest price of the possible contenders, for Tuesday’s RSA Chase. Mobaasher is entered in Wednesday’s National Hunt Chase, and Nomecheki has multiple entries with the Grand Annual on Friday currently favoured.   

I am looking forward to our racemeeting tomorrow which looks like being a gorgeous day, and then being at Cheltenham on Thursday and Friday, and hoping to cheer Kauto Star home. My first visit to the Festival was for Dawn Run’s Gold Cup, and have tried to make it for at least one day every year ever since. There were a couple of years where I haven’t gone, but as with most of us Jump fans, it is a week that I look forward to more than any other all year.

This time of year is always very busy with three racemeetings at Plumpton in both March and April, including our two biggest days of the year on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. In addition this year we have number of Events taking place, including a Cheltenham Preview Evening on 12 March, our first Antiques Fair in April, and Drive in Movie in May so each day is a juggling act between what must be done for the next racemeeting, and ensuring everything is in place for the future meetings and events coming up.  

I am sometimes asked what we do between racemeetings – which I always take positively as the organisation of the day must look effortless, rather than the result of a lot of hard work and planning which it is.  I have worked in a number of companies and I can definitively say that working at a racecourse is the longest hours and hardest work I have ever done. It is also the best job I have ever had.

In addition to this, as anyone who follows the racing press will be aware, there is a lot of ongoing discussion within racing at the moment about funding, fixtures and change. The future structure of the fixture list and funding of racing through the levy is all under review, and I need to ensure that Plumpton is getting it’s voice heard and the impact of any changes on small winter jump courses is understood by the decision makers.  It looks as though battle lines have been drawn by racing -  hopefully we should begin to get a clearer idea of what may happen with funding in 2011 which will enable us to plan more effectively ahead.

Having applied last Friday for one of the BHA’s additional fixtures, we were pleasantly surprised to find out on Monday afternoon we had been successful, and now race this Sunday.

All our suppliers and staff have been wonderfully helpful and supportive, and as a result we have been able to make all the necessary arrangements for a new raceday within 3 days.   Allison and Ian in the office have been complete stars, and Linda from the village came in to help answer the phones whilst we contacted everyone. Locally based bookmakers Star Sports have also stepped in last minute as sponsors. Lots of long hours worked this week!

Mark and his team have had their work cut out getting ready, especially since we made the decision to deploy frost covers, having seen the cold temperatures forecast into the weekend. As such, they have needed to get everything ready on course before Friday morning.  

We also found out last week about our award as the Best Jumps Racecourse of 2009 in the Neil Wyatt Ground Staff Awards. I am so pleased that our exceptionally hard working grounds team here has got official recognition. I was reading earlier today John Maxse’s recent article in the Thoroughbred Owner and Breeder Magazine about how Plumpton has been transformed into one of the best small Jumps tracks in the country. The attention to the track from Mark and his team has been instrumental in us building our reputation, as has their guidance and suggestions for improvements. 

Hope you can make it on Sunday, and enjoy the extra racemeeting.

Thank you to everyone who has sent in their congratulations for us staging the Sussex National meeting on 3rd January. It was very encouraging for the team here to receive such positive feedback, and we are really pleased so many people enjoyed the racing on that day.

Following the great relief of getting the Sussex National meeting on, the team at Plumpton have faced a very challenging 10 days. We were lucky we were racing on the 3rd Janaury and not any day later, as that night a more severe frost set in, which was followed on the Tuesday evening by heavy snowfall. In total we have had 6 inches of snow, and though it may look beautiful, it makes getting ready for a racemeeting very difficult. The grounds team have not been able to do all the usual track repairs, which are now scheduled for this weekend once the snow has (hopefully) cleared.

We have also had all the complications of clearing large amounts of snow, and have a mini snow mountain in our back car park.

Just getting into work has also been difficult. Those of you who know Plumpton will be very aware we are sited in a rural location, and roads have been next to near unpassable, and we had no post for 5 days. Luckily a number of our staff live in Plumpton village which is a short walk away. I had a 5 hour round trip from my home to get into the office last Thursday through a combination of walking and the train, and a special thanks go to Katie who walked in from Wivelsfield Green to help man the office.

Fingers crossed the forecasts are accurate for the coming days which gives us a very good chance of racing on Monday.