OpinionLee Mottershead
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Lifting the lid on Chelmsford's financial saga is revealing - and underlines why the Jockey Club may be the solution

The owners of Essex's only racecourse must not be given an operator's licence after the latest administration

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Chelmsford City : hosted Baaeed gallop
A new operator may be needed if Chelmsford is to survive as a racecourseCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

On Saturday the world will be watching. What it will see is a race and a racecourse that exist only because in dark days the Jockey Club stepped in to save Aintree and the Grand National

Relative to the sport's brightest crown jewel and its home, Chelmsford is chalk to their cheese, yet if it is to survive, the Jockey Club may once again prove to be the ideal saviour.

It was in May 1983 that property developer Bill Davies signed the contract that transferred ownership of Aintree to the Jockey Club. Before that there had been months, years and decades in which Davies and, before him, Mirabel Topham threatened to have Liverpool's racecourse bulldozed for housing. 

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Published on inLee Mottershead

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