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.

2009 was a momentous year for Plumpton – here are my personal top 5 Plumpton highlights. No prizes for guessing the number 1!

1. AP McCoy’s 3,000th winner, on Restless D’Artaix on 9th February. Completely unforgettable to be part of history being made, and likely to be a personal highlight of my time in racing forever more.  The day couldn’t have unfolded in a more dramatic manner, and I definitely have some new grey hairs as a result. We only just missed out on Richard Johnson’s 2,000th winner too.

2.  Celebrating our 125^th year of racing on 23rd February, including a mini Plumpton celebration cake and a photographic display of Plumpton’s past. These landmarks remind you of the wider perspective of all our roles, to preserve what is so loved about Plumpton for future generations.

3.  Mon Mome winning the Grand National, owned by Plumpton Annual Member Vida Bingham. Three of the first four home had run at Plumpton during their careers.

4. Driving our new front-loading tractor – not as difficult as it looked! 

5.  Raising over £220K for the Army And Afghan Appeal at our raceday on November 16th, working with such an enthusiastic and dedicated committee. I have learnt more about Afghanistan during the last 6 months than I ever learnt at school, despite having a history degree.

It is always massively disappointing to lose a meeting, and especially to water logging as our recent record has been very good, losing only 2 meetings in the past 7 years following extensive drainage works.  We all love working in racing, and with only 16 days a year, each raceday is very important to us. A number of our hospitality clients still chose to hold their events here, and the tote were very helpful in providing an away betting service for them.

There is little time to mull over the disappointment of losing the last meeting, with our next racemeeting on 14th December.  It’s a popular day, especially for Christmas parties, so we have been very busy putting in place the final arrangements and turning Plumpton relatively festive.

Unlike the majority of other businesses, the office and ground staff are working hard between Christmas and New Year getting ready for the Sussex National Raceday. The period before Christmas is always very busy as we have to make the majority of our arrangements for this raceday prior to Christmas with many offices and businesses closed over the period, and customers keeping the phones busy looking to purchase gift packages as Christmas presents.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a happy, successful and prosperous 2010.

Plumpton Racecourse has unfortunately had to abandon today due to the course being waterlogged in places.

We are hugely disappointed that racing isn’t taking place.  Plumpton has a deserved reputation for getting racing on, and have only lost two meetings to waterlogging in the past 7 years following substantial investment in our drainage systems.

We have had persistent rain totalling 257mm during November, and though yesterday it was dry, we were then hit with 12mm of rain overnight which was substantially more than forecast and have further heavy showers forecast.

Racegoers who had pre-purchased tickets can get a full refund or exchange their tickets for racing on another date.

I had the good fortune to be at Haydock last Saturday to see the fantastic race between Kauto Star and Imperial Commander. As I work a lot of weekends with Plumpton racing on a Monday, this is probably my only chance to see Kauto in the flesh this year. From where I was standing on the course I was sure Kauto had held on and couldn’t understand why it took so long to announce him the winner. However I understand it looked completely different on the TV, and having now seen the photo I can understand why it wasn’t immediately obvious!  What Kauto Star has achieved makes him the  best chaser I have seen in my lifetime – he truely has it all. What a memorable year it has been for racing ,with him and Sea the Stars.  

I hope we have seen a future star at Plumpton with the victory of Bensalem at our last meeting. He is a gorgeous chasing type, and it looked as though he would come on for the run. I am sure the insurers of our £60,000 Cheltenham bonus will be keeping a close eye on his progress. I also liked the winner of the bumper, Kaybeew, who was making his debut, and looked like a nice horse for the future.

Finally thank you to everyone who donated to the Army And Afgan Appeal. The amount raised is heading towards £200,000 as donations continue to be received here and by the two charities.