Big crowd expected as Towcester prepares for greyhound racing debut
(by Mark Beesley
[email protected])
A crowd of around 8,000 people is expected to flock to Towcester on Saturday night for the opening of the racecourse’s new greyhound track.
Admission is free for 12 races which promise to provide a feast of action which gets underway at 7.40pm, although the feature event is a Ł5,000 invitation over 480m andincludes Category One winners Any Dak and Fit To Win.
Included in that line-up are the Mark Wallis-trained Vanrooney who has proved the fastest over the 480m course so far (28.07 secs) in trials and Derby Plate winner Droopys Norris who has also advertised an immediate liking for the new venue, posting 28.23 seconds in slower conditions.
The opening of Towcester’s dog track is expected to generate huge interest around the county and beyond and represents a considerable achievement for racecourse chief executive Kevin Ackerman, for whom this has been a single-minded crusade for nigh on four years.
Towcester Racecourse owner Lord Hesketh acknowledged as much when he said: “This is the most exciting project I have ever been involved in. The entire team has been working its socks off but a special word has to go to Kevin Ackerman. He has been so tirelessly determined.”
Finishing touches on track lighting were being applied this week with a giant screen being erected... coming off a slow boat from China.
The breakdown of Saturday’s card entails nine open contests plus three graded events (with two eight-runner fields).
Towcester greyhound track manager Chris Page said: “We had a lot of interest surrounding this meeting although I did think there might have been more. However, we have already had indications that Saturday week for our Sky meeting is really capturing the imagination.”
Greyhound meetings will also take place on every Saturday evening during December and January and there will be Friday night slots on all bar Boxing Day, when the racecourse stages National Hunt racing getting underway at 12.30pm.
Salad Dodger, trained in Northamptonshire by Bruno Berwisk and the 16/1 shock winner of the Greyhound Derby at Wimbledon earlier in the year, is expected to make his comeback at Towcester early in the New Year.