Britain’s Chelmsford City has had fixtures called off after a new operating company wasn’t granted a licence.
News of Chelmsford City Racecourse’s hiatus arrived in the same week as positive soundings as to the return of horses (if only for gallops and, possibly, point-to-points) at Towcester racecourse.
It also came only a few days after Cheltenham cancelled its three remaining meetings this season to allow for drainage improvement work.
And, indeed, it comes amidst sporadic talk over the future of Kempton.
Though it’s certainly too soon to be talking of Britain losing a track (and indeed regaining one in the form of Towcester), the cancelling of three fixtures at Chelmsford is rightly cause for concern.
It was shortly after 12pm local time on Wednesday that confirmation came from the BHA: Golden Mile Racing, Chelmsford’s new operators, wouldn’t be granted a licence and racing on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Thursday 9th April would have to be called off.
Golden Mile Racing had taken on Chelmsford (host of racing year-round, but only on an all-weather surface) after the venue’s previous operator, Great Leighs Estates, went into administration.
Its fixture on Thursday 26th March was conducted under the Great Leighs Estates licence, and with special dispensation from the BHA and appointed administrators Begbies Traynor.
Wolverhampton, the BHA later announced, will stage an additional fixture on 9th April with races similar to those originally scheduled at Chelmsford on the date.
Two races from Chelmsford’s Good Friday meeting (whose programme of activities went ahead despite the lack of racing, with ticket refunds available) have also been rescheduled, with a handicap to be run at Southwell on Tuesday 7th April and a conditions race to be run at Wolverhampton on Friday 10th April.
Both contests will have a total purse of £30,000 thanks to contributions from the HBLB and BHA Development Fund.
This, of course, isn’t the first time Chelmsford’s site, which sits about 30 miles south of Newmarket, has gone on a racing hiatus.
When it opened (still looking somewhat like a building site, and with its grandstand a tempoarary structure) as ‘Great Leighs’ in 2008 it was Britain’s first new racecourse for 80-odd years.
The gates, however, were shut less than a year later, its parent company going into administration with debts of over £25m.
It took six years and a revamp before the track was revived, with racegoers this time welcomed to ‘Chelmsford City Racecourse’ (never mind that the centre of Chelmsford is almost ten miles away) and more permanent facilities.
“It took six years and a revamp before the track was revived, with racegoers this time welcomed to ‘Chelmsford City Racecourse’ (never mind that the centre of Chelmsford is almost ten miles away) and more permanent facilities.”
Its management seemed to radiate optimism in the years that followed, as Listed races were allocated and a turf track (which has not yet seen competitive action but did hold pre-Royal Ascot exercise for Wesley Ward’s string in 2022) was rolled out.
Disgruntlement arrived towards the end of 2023, however, when Chelmsford’s team said the BHA not allocating it more fixtures was a “waste of the facility and a loss to racing.”
A potentially horrific incident was narrowly avoided almost a year later when a tractor malfunctioned and left stalls parked across the track.
Frantic flag waving alerted jockeys and runners managed to pull up just in time.
The racecourse was fined £11,500 after being found in breach of stop race procedures having, that January, already been fined £5,000 after being found in breach of the same rule during a race in October 2023.
But it was last year that things really started to go wrong.
A Justin Timberlake concert on 4th July 2025 drew a crowd of tens of thousands but was followed by traffic chaos that left cars stranded for hours, some of their passengers even resorting to walking along the side of a main road.
“Serious injuries or fatalities” could have occurred, according to a police report submitted to Chelmsford City Council, whose licencing committee limited Chelmsford’s concert capacity to 10,000 attendees.
Racecourse staff received only 80 per cent of their pay cheques at the end of December, director of racing (and former trainer) Neil Graham citing circumstances beyond the management’s control.
Then came the latest blow, with the BBC reporting that administrators were formally appointed on Wednesday 25th March, a day before the 26th March fixture.
The Racing Post, however, have written that Nathan Holmes, the track’s chief executive, said a restructuring had been ongoing since 2024, with the BHA aware of the process.
It also quoted a statement from the BHA that stated that “once it was confirmed that the company operating Chelmsford had gone into administration,” it had worked “round the clock” to allow the Easter fixtures to go ahead.
In its press release to announce the decision not to award Golden Mile Racing a licence, the BHA said its Board had made a preliminary decision around the weekend of 28th and 29th March, but that Golden Mile Racing were given the chance to make its case, something it did on Tuesday 31st March, the date of Great Leighs Estate’s licence expiry.
It made clear that, though Golden Mile Racing had not been awarded a licence, requests for permission to appeal can be made within “21 days of receipt of the decision being challenged.”
The racecourse certainly intends to appeal, claiming it’s “not done fighting.”
It lambasted the BHA a couple of hours after its decision was announced, claiming it had disregarded “its own stated licensing objectives”, introducing “new challenges with extremely limited time for response.”
No concerns, it added, had been raised regarding “performance, capability, safety or the quality of the racecourse” and “no further explanation” had been given.
The BHA responded to those words by saying simply it disagreed with Chelmsford’s “characterisation of events.”
But while the BHA added that it wouldn’t make any further public comment on Golden Mile Racing’s licence application or its Board’s decision until the conclusion of any appeal, that surely won’t stop press discussion and complaints from trainers.
The BHA’s timing was probably unavoidable, but Eve Johnson-Houghton perhaps echoed the thoughts of other trainers when she described the decision to abandon racing a little over 24 hours in advance of the first race as showing “complete disregard” to racing’s participants.
In any case, it’s now clear that she and fellow trainers will have to make do without Chelmsford, which was only last year celebrating the tenth anniversary of reopening, for the time being.
Though hopefully not forever.
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