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| Location | Chepstow,Monmouthshire |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 51°39′23″N2°41′19″W / 51.65639°N 2.68861°W /51.65639; -2.68861 |
| Owned by | Arena Racing Company |
| Screened on | Sky Sports Racing |
| Course type | Flat National Hunt |
| Official website | |
Chepstow Racecourse is athoroughbred horse racingcourse located just north of the town ofChepstow inMonmouthshire,Wales, near the southern end of theWye Valley and close to the border with England. It is one of 16 racecourses operated by the Arena Racing Company and is home of the richest race in Wales, theCoral Welsh Grand National.
The track is a roughly oval circuit of just under 2 miles (3,200 m). It is a left-handed undulating course, used for both flat and jump racing. The finishing straight is about 5 furlongs (3,300 ft; 1,000 m) in length, with five fences on the chase course to be jumped. There are eleven fences on a complete circuit. There is also a straight mile course.
There are 29 fixtures in the 2024 calendar year including the two-day Unibet Jumps Season Opener on Friday 11 October and Saturday 12 October. This meeting features the Wasdell Group Silver Trophy (Handicap Hurdle) and the Grade Two Unibet Persian War Novices' Hurdle.
The richest race of the year, the Coral Welsh Grand National takes place on Friday 27 December 2024. This meeting also features the Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle,
Chepstow is one of three racecourses in Wales, the others being atBangor-on-Dee and atFfos Las. It is also used as a venue for numerous other indoor and outdoor events, such as concerts, weddings and conferences.[1]
Several places in South Wales had race meetings in the late nineteenth century and there had been racing atSt Arvans, very close to the present course, between 1892 and 1914.[2] In 1925 a group of ten South Wales gentry and businessmen, that includedCourtenay Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar who was alsoLord-Lieutenant of Monmouthshire, andLord Queenborough;[3] formed a company to purchasePiercefield House, and lay out a new racecourse in its estate. Despite struggling to raise enough cash, the racecourse was opened on 6 August 1926. The first race was a two-year-old seller won byLord Harewood's colt Conca D'Oro, the 7-4 favourite. The two day flat race meeting had good prize money and was termed "The WelshGoodwood".[2]
The course nearly had to close down immediately after the first meeting and survived only thanks to a large bank loan guaranteed by the directors. Unforeseen extra costs in laying it out meant that it struggled financially for the first ten years of its existence and yet more contributions were needed from the directors. The first jump racing took place in March 1927. Since then the course has been used for flat racing in the summer and jumping in the winter. To begin with, the flat racing was more prestigious, with the WelshDerby,Oaks andSt Leger being run for good prize money. In 1933, at a two-day meeting, the multiple champion jockeyGordon Richards won eleven consecutive races at Chepstow – all six races on the first day and the first five races on the next, before being beaten in a close finish in the final race of the meeting.[2]
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Duringthe Second World War, the entire site became designated asRAF Chepstow, an operational outpost ofRAF St. Athan,No. 32 Maintenance Unit RAF andNo. 19 Maintenance Unit RAF. Equipped with only a grass runway in the centre of the course, additional aircraft accommodation for bombers was created at Oakgrove on the opposite side of the road, accessed by stopping the traffic to allow the aircraft to cross. Types stationed on the course during the war included:[4]
After the war and the demise of both Cardiff and the nearbyCaerleon (Newport) course, theWelsh National was transferred to Chepstow in 1949. From then on,National Hunt racing overtook flat racing as the dominant activity as a string of good class horses and top trainers and jockeys contested the race.[2] The three and three-quarter mile race, more recently known as the Coral Welsh National, owes much to the support of the bookmaking firm for establishing it as one of the major events in the National Hunt calendar. It have sponsored it for over forty years, making it the second longest continuous race sponsorship.[1]
The opening of theSevern Bridge and the completion of theM4 motorway made the course more accessible to English racegoers.[5]
The Clay family, which had bought Piercefield House in 1861, were involved with the management course since its formation.[2] Listed on theAIM stock market as aplc in the late 1990s,Sir Stanley Clarke built up an 80% stake in the company and thenreversed his existingNorthern Racing racecourse holdings into the shell. Clarke took over as executive chairman of the Racecourse Company in 2000, resigning in 2003 before his 2004 death fromcancer. Chepstow is now part of theArena Racing Company, also called ARC Racing and Leisure Group a private UK company, created in 2012 by the merger ofArena Leisure andNorthern Racing. It owns and operates several racecourses.[6]
| Month | DOW | Race Name | Type | Grade | Distance | Age/Sex |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | Friday | Persian War Novices' Hurdle | Hurdle | Grade 2 | 2m 3½f | 4yo + |
| October | Saturday | Silver Trophy Handicap Hurdle | Hurdle | Class 2 | 2m 3½f | 4yo + |
| October | Saturday | Robert Mottram Memorial Trophy | Chase | Listed | 2m 3½f | 4yo + |
| December | 27th | Welsh Grand National | Chase | Premier Hcap | 3m 6½f | 4yo + |
| December | 27th | Finale Juvenile Hurdle | Hurdle | Grade 2 | 2m | 3yo only |
Chepstow racecourse hosts concerts after evening race meetings:[1]
