1970 Nottingham NH ....Orient war/Persian War ..thick fog , freezing ,braziers .

Mondays popular at Ally Pally as I recall. I remember a horse winning a seller there called Street Bookmaker in the 60s for some unknow reason.

Happy days at the Colosseum, elise.

Rothbury is a lovely little town, but the Raoul Moat incident caused tourism to crash. I'd imagine that it would have been a scenic track

Chris Pitt wrote a good book about lost racecourses a while back.

Sherston was the venue for a meeting called Beaufort Hunt which was a full NH rules meeting with professional riders and not a PTP. I went there many years ago, probably 1960ish. The only other would be Wolverhampton turf flat and jumping which it used to be. I went there a couple of times. I still have never attended an AW race meeting.

a thread on here a few years ago (?) had a lot of info on manchester i think

Lanark obviously.

iamajambo- The Ascot Gold Cup winner would have been Fighting Charlie. St James Palace Stakes winner may have been Track Spare not sure. There was a valuable 1m 2f handicap run during the Scottish Circit mid sixties which I think Track Spare ran in. I believe an Irish horse which had won the big mile race at Hamilton the Friday before won this race too. I seem to recall that a rich business man originally from Lanark but based in Florida had put up the money. The name Donn comes to mind along with Tommy Gosling the jockey turned trainer also from Lanark I think. I've tried for years to find details of the Lanark race without success.

windsor knot- I still get the same feeling when driving past Lanark even yet. I look down to the 5f start and expect to see the runners and riders coming up the straight.
Never managed to attend Bogside but playing golf at Irvine Bogside about 10 years ago, you could still see some of the concrete posts as well as starting gates and running rails on holes adjacent to the race course. I got the feeling there also that horses and riders were going to appear.

sparrow-I was well into racing by 1965 but I don't remember Rothbury at all, probably due to the several call offs for flooding.

Surprised that Wye and Lewes are not mentioned.
Great memories thanks to all.

if you scroll past the text lower down there are some really good pics of rothbury

http://www.greyhoundderby.com/Rothbury.htm

iswearitsoath - "Not certain at all, but I think Rothbury only raced a few times a year, so might not be easy to recall the venue".

Only ONE meeting a year in early April, at least in the early sixties, closed in 1965.

Thanks for the links and information, Elise and blackbarn.

The area around Rothbury and thropton makes for a great walk, especially by the river.

I never went to Bogside, but I would like to have been there on 19th July 1957. It was a Frankie Dettori kind of day.

blackbarn- AJ Russell.

Tommy - that race at Lanark was run on July 20, 1966. The Irish horse, trained by Charlie Weld (father of Dermot), was Bowzen. He'd won at Hamilton the previous Friday as you remembered (the Hamilton Champagne Stakes over a mile, worth around £1,500) - Magnet Cup day at York. However, he was unplaced at Lanark the followinmg Wednesday, as was Track Spare. The race was the Donn Gulf Stream Handicap, worth around £4,500. (Other races on the card were all around £400 or less). It was won by Lucaya, trained by Bill Elsey, from Colonel Blimp and Parcel Post. Tommy Gosling trained the unplaced fav, Excel. Lucaya was the only other 3yo in the race apart from Track Spare, who carried top weight.

Ged-Thanks once again for jogging my memory.Those two races have been troubling me for about 30 years. When the Irish horse won at Hamilton (easily as I recall) the big holiday crowd were silent.The Lanark race is a bit cloudy due probably to alcohol,but £4.500 wow, what would that work out at today? A time served tradesman in the building trade would be on about £11 and 10 shillings at that time.

god , forgot all about going to towcester . on tv didnt the uphill  finish look like the horses were about to fall over backwards out of the bottom of the telly !...wonder which will be the next course to shut its doors ? i've never been to fakenham but cant help thinking due to the field sizes and its geographical position a full time caravan site might be likely . may be totally wrong and somewhere like kempton goes for expensive housing .

Might be the newest course to stage NH, but I've always wondered if Ffos Las might be vulnerable. They were quite bullish when they opened, seemingly wanting to stage quality racing and attracting Irish runners, but it hasn't happened. I hope not as I've been there and it's a nice spot, but it's very far for many stables to get to (though obviously good for the Welsh racing scene).

I've also wondered if one of those tracks in the west midlands/Welsh Marches might be vulnerable as there seems an awful lot of them quite close together - Stratford, Ludlow, Worcester, Hereford, Warwick.

Who knows though? Many courses that have closed have done so almost overnight, with little warning.

Strange thing is, when Hereford and Folkestone both closed, the common consensus appeared to be that the former was doomed, while Folkestone was thought to have a good chance of reopening.

2060 ? i will be 101 then and just moving up from junior to full membership at ludlow so hope you are wrong.

However I do think the next to go will be a jcr racecourse.

Elise

Thanks for posting that link.