What fabled London area racing facility saw its last race August 16, 2008 ?

The 'Stow.

The site was more valuable to developers, being in the northeast of London and on a tube line straight to the centre, than it was to a dog-track owner.Not many people attend dog tracks nowadays but, come to that, not many people attend the average race meeting [horseracing] yet the racecourses stay open (and a new one has just been opened in Essex). This particular track was quite luxuriously appointed, and attracted a good class of punter.

So Walthamstow Dog Track closed.

Quite right ! I read up a bit online, and it seemed like many of the people moaning about it closing also admitted having not gone in some time. Oh well.

Thanks for the answer.

Hmm. "Not many people attend the average race meeting [horseracing]" I read here.

This suprises me, having read of - and seen - huge crowds heading off to racecourses on several occasions when I've been in the UK.

Even at Carlisle's glorious Blackwell Course...

quote:

Originally posted by Colin, Paris, France:
Hmm. "Not many people attend the average race meeting [horseracing]" I read here.

This suprises me, having read of - and seen - huge crowds heading off to racecourses on several occasions when I've been in the UK.

Even at Carlisle's glorious Blackwell Course...

That's why I wrote 'average' Colin The average race meeting in midweek at Newmarket itself is poorly attended yet Newmarket is the home of the horseracing business.Those who attend then are racing insiders, in the main.You'll find that the two Newmarket classics,on the Rowley Mile Course are well-attended,but the management have had to have bands, such as Jools Holland's, to attract a crowd to the July Course for evening meetings there.

The 'average' meeting is midweek at somewhere that most people only read of in the newspapers, like Catterick, Pontefract,Bath,Fakenham or Fontwell Park, not a festival meeting like Goodwood,or Huntingdon on Boxing Day, or a holidayers' meeting like Yarmouth may still be (it's out of the way and the town doesn't attract resident holidaymakers as it did).The money in racing is not at the gates but in the betting shops.A few courses do attract a reasonable crowd simply because their very few meetings are seen by locals as a 'festival', an event, drawing from far beyond those who would attend any meeting anywhere else.The racing itself is entirely secondary. Carlisle may well be in this category. Chester certainly is for its big meeting.