EASTER is the time of the celebration of the resurrection and those who have observed the rise of Musselburgh will testify how close it came to expiring.
Twenty-five years ago the prospects for racing in East Lothian looked bleaker than a wet Good Friday but, even if the sun may not always shine, there should be a good crowd for the track’s Easter Saturday fixture which features the inaugural running of the £100,000 totepool Queen’s Cup.
The revival of Musselburgh was started by Mark Kershaw and continued when Bill Farnworth arrived as general manager in 1998. “Mark was the one who pulled it out of the gutter,” Farnsworth said. “It had lots of potential. It was pretty basic but it was going in the right direction.
“We raced predominately on Monday afternoons and the two biggest fixtures were a Monday evening in July and a Monday afternoon in September. And 18 years later we’ve made a bit of progress.”
That progress has seen a transformation from the grandstands and viewing areas, parade ring to stabling and the racing surface along with an increase in fixtures from 14 to 27, four of which are shown on ITV including this afternoon. Musselburgh might still be regarded as a small track by those with elitist attitudes but it punches above its weight.
Prize money for this year will be close to £2 million, although Farnsworth admitted: “It gives me a few sleepless nights about how we pay for it all.”
And that is a reflection of a growth in a business that has doubled annual attendances and now generates a turnover of about £6m per year.
“We don’t think small,” Farnsworth said. “Although the actual footprint of the racecourse is relatively small we think big and now we’ve got the facilities all done we can invest in prize money.”
The proof of that came at the two-day Cheltenham Festival Trials meeting in February and the Queen’s Cup is the second six-figure race contested at the track, along with the Scottish Sprint Cup in June.
Sovereign Debt, the last winner for trainer David Nicholls before he quit in March, won the Sunbets All-Weather Mile at Lingfield Park’s All-Weather Championships Finals day meeting.
Sovereign Debt was having his second run for his new trainer, Ruth Carr, and completed a 379-1 treble for the yard from just three runners on the day, the two other winners coming at Newcastle.
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