Lighting-up time arrives on a big night at Newcastle

Newcastle's £12 million transformation is completed on Friday evening when it stages its first meeting under floodlights.

It reopened as an all-weather course, with a Tapeta surface replacing turf, in May but it was racing under lights at night-time that was key to its financial plan.

"I'm really looking forward to it, as is the rest of the city," said executive director David Williamson. "It is the talk of the city at the moment. We're hoping for a good crowd, 3,000 or 3,500 would be nice.