Southwell racecourse

Mansfield Chad

05/08/2024

Southwell racecourse launch day

Transcript

00:00I'm Mark Clayton, I'm the Southwell Racecourse and Golf Club Executive Director.

00:04Is it the launch today?

00:06Yeah, so the background to that is on the 20th of October we flooded.

00:11The River Greek flooded, it was a 1 in 150 year flood occurrence,

00:15which meant we had three foot of water throughout the whole site.

00:19So since then we've been recovering from that,

00:22and today is the first fixture when all our facilities are open.

00:27So we're delighted to welcome people back today,

00:29but it's not the first time that we've raced,

00:32because we raced after five weeks.

00:34Five weeks after the flood we were racing again,

00:37and we've raced 47 occasions since then,

00:42which is a very busy, busy period,

00:44but it wasn't until the 24th of February did we welcome back any racegoers.

00:49So from that point onwards we've been slowly refurbishing our facilities,

00:53slowly reopening things,

00:56with today culminating in the fact that everything's here and ready.

00:59We've refurbished, starting from the top end,

01:01we've refurbished the three training barns that we have.

01:04We've got 40 horses trained up there by Scott Dixon Racing,

01:07they've been refurbished.

01:09As we work through site, all our workshops, back of house areas too,

01:13but the betting hall, the whole of the betting hall.

01:15And in the betting hall we're giving things a little bit of a twist,

01:17so we've upgraded a few things,

01:19and hopefully to the benefit of the racegoer experience.

01:22We've worked through site again, into the weighing room,

01:24where the jockeys and the officials work.

01:27That's had a complete overhaul, and in there now there's a physio room,

01:30there's a warm-up room, there's a canteen, a lounge,

01:33as well as the usual areas you'd expect, like a steward's room and changing rooms.

01:37Then we continue through to a small owners' facility,

01:41stable staff canteen, the offices.

01:44And next to the offices we have a 10-bedroom Bramley Lodge,

01:48where the stable staff stay.

01:50And then up to the bottom of site,

01:52we have our Southwell golf course clubhouse.

01:57So we've got 18 holes on the site,

02:00and at the top there, although the course has been open throughout the winter,

02:03next week on Friday will be the first time that the clubhouse reopens,

02:07so the members will finally have a facility.

02:10Can you tell me a bit about the day of the flood?

02:12Yeah, the day of the flood.

02:14So the day of the flood I was on holiday, I was on the north-north of the coast.

02:17But the flood came through really on that evening.

02:21So we came in on the morning, I came in on the morning of the 21st of October,

02:24not knowing what to expect.

02:26In fact, we had a wedding booked that afternoon,

02:28and we'd pre-warned them of what happened,

02:30but we were still hoping to have put it on in the clubhouse.

02:33On arriving on site, 3 feet of water, 10 inches of water in the clubhouse.

02:38On came the waders, myself and the Estates Manager put our waders on,

02:41and we plotted through sites, splashed through sites.

02:45A little bit concerned that maybe the odd manhole cover may have moved and we might disappear,

02:48but what we wanted to do was rescue the presents, rescue the wedding cake,

02:54to allow them to put their wedding on at Kellam Hall where they'd managed to rearrange it.

02:59At that same time, we had a good looch around,

03:02I went down onto the lower betting hall,

03:05opened the door to see all the furniture bobbing around,

03:09and there was a horrible smell across site that remained up until the end of the year.

03:13It wasn't until the end of the year where we managed to clean and dry everything.

03:17So it took circa 10 weeks to do that,

03:21and the builders moved in 2 weeks later, at the start of January,

03:25and we'll be leaving next week.

03:27We've had a lot of challenges during the refurbishments,

03:30and I've got such a feeling of pride around what we've managed to achieve.

03:34And when I say we, I mean not just the Southwell team,

03:37I mean the wider team, it's been a big effort from a lot of people.

03:41All our contractors have really worked to help us achieve,

03:45and deliver today to give us a run-in to what we've got coming up.

03:49We've got our Advertiser Ladies' Day coming up,

03:51so our Ladies' Day is our biggest fixture of the year,

03:54that takes place on Sunday the 18th of August.

03:57We'll have nearly 9,000 people here,

03:59and they'll all be entertained by not just the horses,

04:01but by Vernon Kay, who'll be DJing after racing.

04:04That's then followed by our Family Fun Day,

04:06our Racing League fixture which is live on ITV.

04:09All our fixtures are on Sky Sports Racing,

04:11but to get ITV down here for our bigger days is really quite something.

04:15And the Racing League fixture on the 29th of August,

04:18they're running for prize money of £340,000.

04:21So it's a busy period in August,

04:24and we're delighted that people will be coming through.

04:27They must keep an eye out though for the redo offer

04:29we've got out with the Mansfield chat.

04:31So with that, you'd better come for free racing in the autumn here,

04:35and we really want people to come and experience

04:37what we've done here.

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