Sad news, but I'm not in the slightest bit surprised. I was told by someone last year that Hereford was hanging by a thread. A lot of the Northern Racing courses are on prime devlopment land so I wouldn't be surprised to see others follow suit. My money would be on Yarmouth to go next. Full story here for those that have not seen it
I must say I'm not in the least surprised, if the course isn't financially viable then the owners cannot be expected to keep on subsidising it ad infinitum. A racetrack is no different to a coal mine, a steelworks or a paper mill.
It is obviously very disappointing for regular patrons that Hereford and Folkestone are both under threat but this is just a sign of the times. The ownership of both courses is in the hands of a company that is run by a property development family; however, it may be premature to conclude that this is simply real estate asset stripping. House building is certainly in the doldrums at the moment as the property bubble has well and truly burst. This would be a very ineffective way of grabbing land. I gather that attempts to redevelop Hereford racecourse have been thwarted in the past and attendances do not make it viable as a business without change so it would be a little unfair to suggest that it has been deliberately run down just to get the land. Racing needs to realise that it has to cut its cloth according to its circumstances. It is a minority sport. We continually see statistics put out showing that it is the most attended sport in the country, but this completely ignores the fact that it takes place almost every day of the year and many of the body count are repeat visitors. Whilst Racing For Change are experimenting with metres instead of furlongs (how long before the Derby is 2400 metres?) and kilograms instead of stones and pounds, they are ignoring the fact that the massive fixture list, saturated with poor quality bookie fodder to maximise the Levy, is the problem not the solution.
