Exeter Racecourse

Racecourse number: 7

First visited: 1986

Number of visits: 1

My summer holiday in 1986 was at Pontin's Torbay holiday camp in Devon. Simply fantastic. Even better, this gave me a prime opportunity to visit, with my Mum and Dad, one of the local racecourses. Like trips to the races, holidays to Butlins and Pontins were a big feature of my childhood. At some of the bigger camps there were on site bookmakers. At Torbay the arrangements for placing a bet were simply fantastic in there outdatedness. You would write out your bet at reception and hand over your stake prior to 11am. The camps collective bets would be taken and placed at a local bookies and winnings picked up for collection the following day. There was racing on TV at York that week and I remember my Dad collecting his winnings following a success from an old favourite, Triptych. This was in the days when newspapers and teletext were the main source of racing news and information. In fact, without teletext whilst on holiday, we nearly made the mistake of going to Exeter races a day early. We were all primed to go when I realised via the day’s newspaper that the meeting was the following day!

Exeter would be my seventh racecourse. Significantly, the notion of going to the races whilst on holiday would be the key to me attending so many courses throughout my life. This day was thus a catalyst for some brilliant trips to the races throughout Great Britain. Exeter is one of the largest racecourses in terms of its circuit distance so I was impressed when my Dad, having got us there quite early decided to walk the course. I must have decided against it for some reason. Certainly it was a warm day and the ground pretty firm. Past the winning post, I recall the massive loop the runners had to take before entering the back straight. A traditional looking course but a little more pear shaped than oval. Horses I remember from this day are Razzle Dazzle Boy, Britannicus and Melendez though in truth I cannot recall the winners, any betting successes, failures or otherwise. I have no help either from trusty racing online databases, as they do not go back quite that far. 

On examining the racecard, which I have kept all these years, I found a number of significant jockeys and trainers who were there that day of great interest. Riding in race one for example was future champion trainer Paul Nicholls. Training in race four was ex-champion jockey John Francome. Others with rides that day were Brendan Powell, Richard Dunwoody and Simon Sherwood. Martin Pipe had just the one runner that day in the last race. Within a few years, he would totally dominate such southern jumps meetings with runners in every race and most of them as favourite. Possibly of most interest in the racecard to me was that the commentator was Mr. L McKenzie. I am assuming this was a very early call from Lee McKenzie who I have seen at the races as an announcer or commentator many times over the years. Indeed nearly thirty five years later so many of these names or their children remain a major feature of today's horse racing circuit. Like me, they and their families keep coming back for more.