NEWBURY RACECOURSE
🎫 Ticket & value: Premier Enclosure £33 Christmas Mid Week Race Day
👀 Track view: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🍔 Food: ⭐️⭐️
🍺 Guinness: ⭐️⭐️
⭕️ Parade Ring: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🏇 Runners and riders: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎉 Atmosphere: ⭐️⭐️
⭐️ Overall Experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
👍🏻 Best for: Track view 👀
In the build up to the festive period, we took a trip to one of the souths premier racecourses, Newbury, to watch some competitive racing. For £33, the ticket price was fairly expensive and although the racecourse itself is modern and large in size it was surprising that the premier ticket option was the only one available on the day. This may have been due to the lower crowd attendance.
For the ticket price you’d hope for a decent view of the racing, and that’s exactly what Newbury offers! From the stands you have an excellent view of the whole racecourse, perfect for jumps racing as you can enjoy the horses pinging fences and hurdles over the far side of the track. In addition, the rail also provides an excellent track view, allowing for fantastic viewing of the horses coming up towards the winning post down the home straight. For the short races, horses will come out through the shoot and canter down in front of the stands albeit not on the main track itself but still enabling racegoers an extra look at their paddock picks heading down to post. With premier access, you are able to get in line with the winning post which makes for spectacular viewing when horses are neck and neck right to the very end of the race. With two tracks at Newbury the jumps is on the inner so you are slightly further away than the flat track but its a nice long home straight.
For a premier enclosure, the food options at Newbury were fairly limited and unfortunately overpriced. The counter inside the stand offered punters either chilli con carne or a special Christmas Hot Dog both for £9.95, however the service inside was pretty slow which isn’t helpful between races. We opted for the Christmas hotdog which was just executed very poorly with mushy stuffing. Outside there were only 2 food options, one truck providing steak rolls, chicken and chips and calamari strips for around £13.50 alongside a traditional fish and chip shop. The queue for the truck wasn’t moving so we decided to tuck into the fish and a battered sausage, where the fish was tasty, flaky, sustainable and of good quality whilst the sausage was as you’d expect from a chippy although the batter on both wasn’t the best. With the fish costing £8 and the sausage and extra £4, you can see how taking a family to the races could become expensive for parents, which isn’t ideal for a sport trying to entice people to it. However it is always nice to have an onsite fish and chip shop that you can go into and sit down, as us brits do love this national dish!
The Guinness at Newbury was slightly disappointing, with the first one being pre poured already behind the bar I imagine to speed up service meaning we couldn’t see if it was settled half way but and would have been sat there for too long before consuming, resulting in a poor tasting pint at a fairly high range £7.30. Despite this, we tried the second bar which was outside the main stand in a converted shipping container which thankfully showcased a much better Guinness. Poured perfectly and left to settle, this was reflected in the creamy taste of a good racecourse Guinness. A mixed bag on the Guinness front.
Newbury boasts a beautiful parade ring, allowing racegoers access virtually the whole way around to watch the horses parading pre race. Racing fans are able to get up close to the horses, trainers and jockeys as they parade before the race, giving punters every opportunity to hopefully pick out a winner in the next race! Finally, jockeys are given a leg up right in front of the racing fans themselves which is a wonderful opportunity for punters to understand the size and scope of these majestic animals.
As Newbury is located near plenty of racing yards, naturally you always get some decent jockeys and trainers in attendance. With jockeys such as Sammy Twiston-Davies, Nico De Boinville and James Bowen battling it out against each other for extra jockey cup points, the racing was naturally very exciting and competitive. This meant that trainers such as…were also in attendance, which was great to see for new and existing racing fans. With the Challow hurdle meeting coming 10 days later there wasnt any proper high graded races.
The crowd wasn’t the largest being a Wednesday before Christmas so the stands weren’t rammed and you were able to quickly and freely move between the parade ring, bar and grandstand. Placing bets with on course bookies didn’t require much queuing. The atmosphere around the track was ok, there was always a decent turnout viewing the pre race antics around the parade ring and with the crowd warming up throughout the day the noise became gradually louder with each race and the crowd making noise with the horses finishing.
Overall, Newbury racecourse provides racing fans with a wonderful track view to spectate the jumps racing action from both the rail and the stands. Furthermore, it gives spectators the excitement of getting close to the horses and jockey in and around the parade ring, as well as when they make their way out to the track itself. Hopefully they rethink their ticket and food prices in the new year, as for a family of 4 to attend this raceday it could become expensive with tickets, food and drink all together.
