Fakenham's clerk of the course David Hunter is hoping to bring beach racing to the Norfolk coastline. A visit to Laytown in Ireland in the summer sparked the idea, and Hunter feels the four-mile long beach at Holkham would be the perfect venue to stage something similar to Britain. With Holkham just over 10 miles away from Fakenham, it is already used by some Newmarket trainers as a change of scenery for their horses who enjoy a paddle in the sea. Hunter is aware there will be plenty of hoops to jump through before his vision is realised, but already has the backing of some trainers.
He said, “I've been running Fakenham for over 20 years and I've always had this idea about running a meeting on the beach in the middle of the summer, when a huge number of people are here. I went to Laytown, saw how it was all laid out and had a word with a few people the next day and it has rekindled my interest to do this somewhere along the line.
“Apart from working with the British Horseracing Authority, which is equally important, I would need to speak to the land owners and agencies, but now that it is out there it will galvanise me to give it more thought. There is an association of European Beach Racing and they've invited me to their AGM which I've not been able to attend before but I'm hoping to go to the next one. I know there's a lot of discussion about the size of the fixture list, which is another thing to take into account.”
He went on, “There's a long way to go, but there's a lot of people who come here in the summer and if we can get consent and access and work with the BHA on health and safety etc then it could be a goer.”
A BHA spokesman said of the idea, “We are always open to proposals that could help to grow British horse racing and bring it to new audiences. Any new concept for racing under rules would be subject to the same extensive safety and licensing criteria as existing locations and fixtures, and we would have to be confident that any new location was suitable before proceeding further.”
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