Racegoers fill your boots – Plumpton's the place to go

Up until the turn of the century, Plumpton could hardly be considered one of the 'heartbeats' or bastions of National Hunt racing. In all fairness it was not a great place to go racing, particularly on a wet Monday in the depths of the winter. The ground was too often bottomless and sometimes waterlogged. As well as this, the facilities were, to say the least, average.

In the late 1980s course specialists such as John Guest’s Dark Heritage and Geoffrey Rowlandson’s Rowlandson’s Jewels – both trained by David Murray Smith, were serial winners there and could not get enough of the place. In fact, I saw Tim Thomson-Jones, who rode both chasers, at Plumpton last Sunday, when my employers, Core Spreads, sponsored the race meeting.

In 2002, this picturesque course started to run in to serious financial difficulties. But things improved thanks to Peter Savill, then chairman of the BHB, and Adrian Pratt, who bought the course and injected a considerable amount of cash into it, enabling a much-needed drainage system to be installed, as well as giving the whole place a massive facelift.