Haydock Park gears up for an action-packed racing comeback this August

The Jockey Club has announced that Haydock Park expects to restart racing on Friday, 7th August, after fixtures were cancelled when a hole previously opened up on the Flat outer track.

In order to facilitate the August return, scheduled fixtures on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th July have been cancelled to provide adequate time for the essential repairs on the outer course to be finished.

The fixture originally set for Saturday, 18th July has been moved to Nottingham Racecourse on that same date. The British Horseracing Authority will confirm the race programme for Nottingham and share details regarding the rescheduling of the Friday, 17th July meeting shortly.

The Madness concert that was booked to follow the racing on Saturday, 18th July, will still happen at Haydock Park as originally planned. All hospitality guests and ticket holders will be reached out to directly with more details regarding the concert and the refund procedure.

Anyone who purchased tickets for the racing on Friday, 17th July, will be given an automatic refund, and hospitality clients will be contacted directly by the racecourse team.

Daniel Cooper, Clerk of the Course at Haydock Park, said: 

“While it is disappointing to cancel our fixtures in July, we are confident that this is the right decision to allow us to work with the relevant experts to complete further investigations and carry out the recommended repair to the outer track.

“Our investigations have narrowed down the cause of the issue to a fissure associated with historic mining activity in the area and that elements of a previous repair deteriorated, which created a pocket of instability beneath the turf, which led to the hole that appeared in May.

“Working with independent structural engineers and experts in this field, we have traced the fissure and will replace the previous repair with a more robust and durable solution. This will involve using a membrane and repair technique utilising modern materials and layers of material found in the natural makeup of the land.”

Cooper continued: 

“We also conducted a Ground Penetration Radar Survey across the entire course. As you would expect, the survey identified some anomalies which we have checked. The results will enable us to produce an up-to-date map of the racecourse to support our enhanced maintenance programme, which will now be put in place.

“We have always been of the view that, in the interests of safety, it would not be appropriate to race on the inner course while the excavated area remained exposed on the adjacent outer course. However, having spent considerable time investigating and analysing the results, we are now confident that once we have repaired and filled in the excavated areas of the outer course, we will be able to race on the inner course.

While we allow the outer course time to recover from the necessary work, the team will work hard to ensure the inner course is in the best condition possible to stage all racing in the meantime.

“We would like to thank the British Horseracing Authority for their support in rescheduling our cancelled fixtures, and the National Trainers Federation, Professional Jockeys’ Association, Racecourse Owners’ Association and our annual members and racegoers for their understanding and patience while we have conducted our investigations over the past few weeks.”

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