Lack of new blood forces Yorkshire Racing Club to shut up shop after 35 years

Racing's difficulty in appealing to a younger audience has been cited as a major factor in the closure of the Yorkshire Racing Club after more than three decades.

Dwindling numbers has caused the winding up of an organisation that hosted just about every jockey and trainer in the county as a guest at one time or another during its 35-year history.

"We were having the same trouble as the racecourses were having in getting the younger people in," said secretary David Beardsall.

"They came up with pop concerts and other attractions and the promise of an open bar throughout the afternoon, hoping to encourage a younger audience who would enjoy a more social side to the main horse racing event.

"A lot of our members were pensioners, some of them didn't even have computers. Every year the membership would reduce as two or three would pass away.

"Attendances had been diminishing. I used to book a guest for a meeting on a Tuesday and I'd spend the first ten minutes in the bar apologising for how many were there. We had just 12 one night."

The club had a monthly magazine and a tipping competition and organised visits to race meetings and local yards, as well as hosting a wide range of guests at its meetings.

"It was started by John Morgan, the Yorkshire Post correspondent, as he'd seen they had got one in Lancashire," recalled Beardsall, 76. "We had hundreds of members at one time.

"Everyone who was anyone came to our meetings. We had jockeys and trainers plus vets, horse dentists, commentators, a judge and a clerk of the scales."

Funds remaining after the club was wound up and expenses were met have been distributed to good causes, with bequests made to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, the Injured Jockeys Fund, The Hill House Appeal in Middleham, Racing Welfare, New Beginnings and the Northern Racing College.

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