Horse Racing: Musselburgh will not rest on gold rush

Published on Wednesday 23 February 2011 10:29

Musselburgh boss Bill Farnsworth insisted today the racecourse won't rest on its laurels after winning a gold award, the culmination of a 15-year improvements programme costing around £5 million.

Farnsworth is now planning more improvements to the running surface by moving the back straight towards the sea line, thus allowing more room for improving the bottom bend.

The East Lothian track was awarded a Gold Standard by the Racehorse Owners Association and becomes the third track in Scotland to attain a level which has been achieved by only 17 of Britain's 60 racecourses.

Farnsworth said: "We have a masterplan to make Musselburgh one of the best smaller racecourses in the country and building the Queen's Stand in 1995 was the first major step.

"The last piece of the jigsaw was the new stables block and facilities for stable staff which we opened recently.

"Our philosophy is to do things so that they last, so our next step is to further improve the running surface. Moving the back straight out would widen the course and give more ground to improve the bends which get badly cut up if we have a wet winter.

"It would have been done as part of building the all-weather track had we got planning approval for that, but it still needs to be done and will cost 1m.

"Things are extremely tight at present, but hopefully we will start work when the new improved media rights income streams come into play in 2013."

The Gold Standard will be presented to track officials at the race meeting on May 20.

"Fifteen years ago, this place was in tatters with the course putting little or nothing into very low prize money for low-grade racing, but we have managed to improve that, too," added Farnsworth.

"Prize money this year will still top 1.15m despite the cutbacks and we shall contribute a third of that total, so clearly we have made real progress."