2014 Racecourse of the Year Awards

Posted in 2015 Posts; Posted 6 years ago

The Results are in for the 2014 Racecourse of the year as voted for by the members of the Racegoers Club

Cheltenham Named Racegoers Club Racecourse of the Year 2014

·      Cheltenham wins for eleventh consecutive year
·      York and Ascot named runners up

The Racegoers Club, the official club for racing fans in Britain, has today announced Cheltenham as Racecourse of the Year in 2014.

In a poll of their 5,000 strong membership, the Gloucestershire track was rated on top for the eleventh year in a row, with Racegoers Club Members praising the quality of the racing and the ‘unbeatable atmosphere’.

Ian Renton, Jockey Club South West Regional Director commented, ‘All of the team at Cheltenham are delighted to have won the Racegoers Club Racecourse of the Year for the 11th consecutive time. This is especially rewarding as the second part of the year at Cheltenham, the autumn and winter of 2014 was also the time that the racecourse was undergoing some major refurbishment as part of the £45million redevelopment. I am very much looking forward to concluding those building works in time for The Festival in 2016 so that racegoers can enjoy all the fantastic new facilities that we are building.”

As in 2014, York, the highest placed flat racecourse, was first runner up.  The Racecourse received fantastic feedback from Racegoers Club Members highlighting the ‘excellent facilities, value for money and warm welcome’ that they had received throughout the year on the Knavesmire. 

In third place was Ascot, which was the scene of one of the Racegoers Club’s highlights in 2014 as they sent off the Richard Fahey trained Clouds Rest in the Queen Mary Stakes at the Royal Meeting.  The Club continued to organise a number of such affordable ownership syndicates, which along with Clouds Rest, included horses trained by Charlie Hills, Malcolm Jefferson, Dan Skelton and Nicky Henderson in 2014 as well as offering racecourse entry concessions to every racecourse in Britain, covering meetings year round.

The poll also saw Members show their preference for racecourses regionally, with a number of smaller courses receiving a large number of votes, such as the winners of the Scotland & North East Racecourse of the Year title, Perth. 

General Manager Sam Morshead said, ‘For a ‘small’ racecourse to win the overall award is awesome! I am delighted that the hard work put in by each and every member of the small team at Perth has been recognised so favourably by the Members of the Racegoers Club. All of us are hugely proud of our little gem and we will all continue to polish it as much as we can in the months and years ahead. There are some exciting improvements to come on stream in the next few months so we all very much hope that these will add further to the enjoyment of our racegoers’.

Full results of the Racegoers Club Racecourse of the Year votes are below.

Area

Overall Winner

Small Racecourse Winner

Scotland & North East

Perth

Kelso

North

York

Ripon

North Midlands

Chester

Market Rasen

South Midlands & East Anglia

Cheltenham

Huntingdon

South West

Newbury

Wincanton

South East

Ascot

Fontwell

Overall

Cheltenham