Newmarket racecourse

Course: Newmarket Racecourse - Flat season Finale

🎫 Ticket & Value: Grandstand & Paddock £23

👀 Track view: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🍔 Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🍺 Guinness: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

⭕️ Parade Ring: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🏇 Runners and riders: ⭐️⭐️

🎉 Atmosphere: ⭐️⭐️

⭐️ Overall Experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

👍🏻 Best for: Food 🍔

If you’ve ever wondered what horse racing heaven looks like, then the town of Newmarket is as close as you’re going to get! The small town is home to 2 different racecourses, both Newmarket, one being the July Course and the one we visited known as The Rowley Mile. As soon as you enter the town itself, racing is everywhere to see as you watch the horses either crossing roads or out on the gallops alongside jockeys riding out for trainers in the mornings before racing. The pubs are all playing racing tv showing the racing from across the day and well into the evening, with Newmarket also having the National horse racing museum and national stud, where superstar Stradivarius now enjoys his retirement. Tattersalls is also located in the town offering anyone the opportunity to go and watch yearlings to horses in training being sold in the ring, quite the experience. If you’re interested in racing, Newmarket really is the place to visit and there’s a reason why it’s known as the HQ of flat racing in England.

The Rowley mile is a straight course with runners coming from the right side of the stands, you get an excellent view of the course from both the rail and the stand which gives spectators a fantastic opportunity to see plenty of the race. From the stands you also have a brilliant view of the infamous ‘dip’ that the track is renowned for as well as having a great view of the stalls where the horses lineup before the off. Despite not having access to the winning post with the grandstand ticket, you still get a decent view of the horses crossing the finish line from both the stands and the rail.

Now we come to the food on offer at Newmarket and wow…what a lineup! With stall options ranging from hog roasts to burgers, filly cheese steak, pizza and chicken wraps providing excellent street food for racegoers, they also had an excellent restaurant in the racecourse providing a sit down meal option as well. The restaurant itself offered a tremendous buffet style setting with fish and chips, sausage and mash and curries available. Finally, the piece de resistance the restaurant offered was a delicious Roast of the Day option which was a succulent beef joint, carved in front of you and served pink served with roast potatoes, vegetables, cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire puddings and lashings of gravy! We cant say we’ve seen a roast at any racecourse yet so this was a welcomed addition and proved a proper hearty meal to see any punter through a day on the Guinness. Coming in at £14 we feel this provides some fair value given its quality and better nutritional value over something like a burger. A wonderful example of a racecourse providing racegoers with tremendous food options at great value.

The Guinness at Newmarket reflected the high standards and quality of the racecourse as a whole. A crisp pint poured perfectly every time of asking, the staff were well trained and the consistency was great to see. A proper creamer this one as shown in our instagram reel of this review. The Guinness also came in a higher standard of plastic cup which always softens the blow of not being able to have it in a glass which also helped maintain the quality of the pint throughout the day and at £7.30 was priced reasonably well considering the racecourse being the home of flat racing and most of the time providing some top class racing. If the pint is of this quality you feel you can wear that price a bit more.

The racecourse boasts a huge and wonderful parade ring, clearly able to host large field sizes and big races throughout the flat season. There’s plenty of tiered standing which gives punters an excellent view of the horses parading before the race, with benches towards the top to allow people to sit down and relax away from the busy crowds plus stool seats right down by the rail. You also have brilliant access to the pre parade ring, which leads directly into the main parade ring itself. This offers a wonderful opportunity to watch the horses get saddled up by their trainers before heading into the main parade ring where their owners will join them. A beautiful and well designed parade ring that’s able to accommodate large fields, big crowds and top class runners & riders. A nice bonus is a big balcony accessible from the main grandstand which overlooks the parade ring if you easily want to navigate from trackside and back.

With the end of the flat season fast approaching and the Breeders Cup meeting being on at the same time, some of the top jockeys like Buick, Murphy and Moore were absent on the day. Despite this, the card still boasted some excellent jockeys such as Jamie Spencer, Saffie Osborne and David Egan to name some. There were two runners across from Ireland from the Harrington yard. The racing on the whole was fairly competitive, however the mixture of breeders cup and the end of the flat season meant the level of racing could’ve been a higher grade like you’d normally expect at Newmarket.

Similarly, the atmosphere at Newmarket this raceday matched the level of horse racing on offer. With a fair sized crowd and tickets good value, the atmosphere around the track was quite relaxed and subdued. The noise trackside was only evident in a couple of races, otherwise the atmosphere on the whole didn’t match the racecourse itself and the many quality aspects already on offer.

Overall, Newmarket racecourse itself is really up together and modern, with fantastic facilities and amazing food and drink options for racegoers. The car park is free to all users or equally the racecourse is walkable from the town centre as well in around 20 minutes depending on your location. There is also a free shuttle bus to town and the station with direct train links to London.To fully experience Newmarket as a whole, get down early to the town itself to see the horses on the gallops before the days racing commences, and enjoy being immersed in a town that lives and breathes the sport of horse racing.