Chester Racecourse

Number of visits: 6

My first five visits to Chester were very much an eclectic mix. The first in the 1980s was a standard family affair extending my early range of attended racecourses. By including Chester, York and Haydock in these early visits I was being spoilt by the quality on offer and to some extent setting myself up for later disappointment. Sorry Catterick! Whilst at University I attended Chester in the summer holidays with my racing friend from college Paul. He was impressed with my growing knowledge of racing and my new ‘professional’ approach to betting. I would only back two horses at this meeting. When my first selection won he was very keen to bet on my second. He was then most surprised and disappointed to see my selection never trouble the leaders. A couple of years later a works trip (from TNT) to Chester provided my first insight into where drinking not betting was the priority for my group. I did badly at both but did back the first winner, watching excitedly from high up in the packed stand. I remember it took forever to exit the stands and go and collect my winnings and that my colleagues were frustrated with my efforts to wade through the crowd. They were keen to get to the bar before the next race!

My next visit took in a day of the three day festival in May which includes the Chester Cup and significant trials for the Derby and Oaks. I had travelled alone by train via Preston and Warrington. I won the Placepot on that rainy day watching the decisive race six in a betting shop between the racecourse and the train station. This was 1994 and my method of collection was to send my winning slip to the nice people at the Tote, who in turn sent me a cheque in the post for around £60. When I returned around ten years later to Chester I would have a baby daughter with me attending her very first racecourse. My wife Claire and I plus baby Rachel had stayed at the nearby Mollington Banastre Hotel. At the races, camped out near the paddock our little entourage generated almost as much interest as the horses themselves. It was another fourteen years or so before I visited Chester again in June 2018. A VIP day for me and my Dad courtesy of Racing UK. Despite us having a fantastic day, Chester racecourse had taken significant steps backwards. 

For a Saturday fixture this was a pretty low key affair. The feature race of the day was a class two handicap. There was better racing at York and Sandown but the best flat horses around were now gearing up for the Royal Ascot meeting. My dad and I had bagged some very valuable Festival Chalet tickets, in the centre of the course, for a select few Racing UK Club Day VIPs. The facilities in the chalet village are excellent. Private access to the inner rail, less than a furlong out and our own room for the fifty or so in our group to base ourselves for the day, buy a drink, enjoy the free biscuits and escape the elements. The weather forecast had been patchy at best but following a couple of stormy downpours the day settled to become sunny and warm.

To start things off the Racing UK team had laid on racecourse commentator Stuart Machin to go through the card with us and hopefully point us in the direction of a winner or two. He came across very well, chatting happily with members of the group before discussing significant contenders in each race. Whilst he did mainly sit on the fence he did put strong emphasis on Istanbul Sultan his fancy in the big race of the day. I like to make up my own mind when it comes to backing winners but I am always looking for information to help form my opinion. Race one was a good example of this where Stuart did not tip me the winner but he did prevent me from switching to a loser. I was struggling to decide between the established form of Marie's Diamond and the potential of Gabrial The Wire owned by Dr Marwan Koukash. Stuart was somewhat negative about the latter's debut which nudged me in the right direction. Both me and Dad backed the impressive Marie's Diamond who won under the expert course guidance of Franny Norton despite having an unfavourably wide draw. When Franny Norton won again in race two it was no real surprise but the mood in the chalet was somewhat sombre. The weather had just turned nasty and everyone inevitably had backed the well touted but ineffective today Istanbul Sultan.

At this stage I had placed my bets with the traditional board bookmakers over the other side of the course. I would do this only once more as the process of getting there through the growing crowd was both unpleasant and time consuming. Bottlenecks in key areas were prevalent. After being somewhat crushed and nearly knocked over twice my Dad was now content to stay in the safety of our chalet. There were simply too many people in the same small space. Unfortunately this meant we had to embrace the disaster that is Chester Bet. Before I get into this it is only fair to mention the numerous positives Chester racecourse has to offer. First and foremost it has a wonderful natural setting around the historic walls of Chester. There was live music on arrival and in various areas of the course during racing which certainly added to the atmosphere and quality feel of the place. I enjoyed looking at the display boards around the paddock of historic Chester racing scenes since 1539. The paddock itself is stunning and centrally placed. There are plenty of helpful staff and a high level of security. The racecard, which we got free, is one of the best I have seen including full pages on the key races at other meetings. There are great food options, the usual big screen and plenty of toilets. Despite all this I was not happy.

To be fair I was not happy with the notion of Chester Bet before I arrived. Effectively a replacement for the Tote it should not really have affected my day as I only occasionally bet with the Tote. I was expecting poor value returns and I had heard that it had replaced the on course betting shops, though I found this difficult to believe. Incredibly though, this was true and the reality of it was much much worse than I expected. There was no equivalent of a betting shop, just a series of betting points, similar to the Tote manned mainly by inexperienced young staff. If McDonalds ever do gambling! The lack of a betting shop was a big loss. Nowhere to use as a base between races, nowhere to study the form in depth, nowhere to watch an obscure race from Hexham and nowhere for my Dad to place his favoured multiple bets! A few select races from York and Sandown were shown on the big screen but there was no apparent access to footage from other meetings. Predictably the old betting shop was now a bar. Most of all it was tough to reconcile that I am no longer the target audience for the sport I love. A much younger, drinking focused crowd with only a passing interest in the action is the main demographic. I get the economics of it but I don't like it. Race three was a disaster for Chester Bet but I would have to accept that the majority of racegoers probably didn't even notice. On the way to the start of the race a runner unseated its jockey and proceeded to do two laps of the track. Not an everyday occurrence I know but it does happen quite often. I had intended to have two bets in the race but only managed one.This late non runner crashed the Chester Bet system moments before the race commenced but not before betting chaos ensued. Once the non runner was announced some punters wanted their money back to change their bets. No can do. Others continued to bet freely on the race not realising all bets were now somehow going on race four! Some people realised. Others did not! Once the Chester Bet supervisors fairly quickly picked up on this they stopped any further bets being placed. If you were on the inside of the track like me and Dad you could not place any further bets. In a flash the race was off and fortunately my unbacked selection did not win. I can live with poor divdiends and slow payouts but this was ridiculous. If this is the future of betting at racecourses, betting at racecourses will greatly suffer and maybe even have no future.

We managed another winner prior to our final race where we both fancied sprinter Zac Brown who had run well at Goodwood the previous week. We both had £10 to win which was a bold move on a horse forecast to go off at odds of around 10-1. Our final twenty minutes at Chester highlighted the contrasts of Chester and our own experience of it. Well positioned from the off Zac Brown kicked clear on the turn for home and stormed past us with the race in his pocket. Fantastic, a great way to finish. My Dad and I started the payout queue and were curious to know what we would get paid for our very generously priced 14-1 winner. Ten minutes later we were still waiting to find out while the Chester Bet system, seemingly powered by my ten year old laptop, worked out the returns. The wait was improved a little by us watching a re-run of the race. Finally a dividend was declared and we both received £136. Not terrible especially given the expected price but still £14 short of parity. As we squeezed our way to the exit, happy with our winnings, we encountered the police dealing with a scuffle between two drunken racegoers before finally making our way to the safety of the exit. A day of contrasts for sure but one we certainly enjoyed.