SANDRACER.COM - Great Leighs Opens On Sunday April 20th

Great Leighs Opening On Sunday

Great Leighs opens it's doors to the AW horses this sunday (20 april 2008), but will not be admitting the racing public until May 28, 2008. Some fine tuning regarding amenities has been quoted as the reason.

The inspectorate of the BHA finally gave Great Leighs the thumbs up for sunday's meeting this morning (fri 18 apr 08), after a few cancellations for varying reasons.

Paul Struthers, BHA spokesman, said:

"Great Leighs has passed this morning's inspection and declarations for Sunday's fixture will therefore be accepted.

Minor preparatory work will continue today and tomorrow. However, barring unforeseen circumstances, racing at Great Leighs on Sunday goes ahead."

John Holmes, owner of Great Leighs, admits it is not ideal that the first few meetings will not be open to members of the public, who will have to wait until May 28 to attend.

However, after so many unforeseen hold-ups, he is very much looking forward to the day.

"We're very excited, but at the same time we realise we've got a job to do before racing over the next 24 hours," said Holmes.

"It has been a long time coming, but we have a nice card on Sunday and it's unfortunate that we're not going to be open to the public.

"We have two very nice fixtures on May 28 and 29 and we're looking forward to that.

"We're having four bookmakers turn up on Sunday and generally speaking we'll be looking at around 10 - the betting ring is adjacent to the grandstand."