Hoofing It was like many things in my life the outcome of a drunken evening. What would it be like to travel around the Uk and visit every track that is mentioned on the British Horse Racing site and also appears on the TOTE betting system. Ok, its a challenge, for many reasons, first so which is the distances involved. The most Northern course is Perth and the most Southern is Newton Abbot in Devon. The furthest West Is Ffos Las in Wales and the most easterly is Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. Add to this that tracks do not meet very often and that there are two codes, Flat and National Hunt which are not based at every track and you have a real conundrum.
But there was method in the madness. We got to see huge areas of the country not visited before and some fabulous people along the way. It now leaves the issue as to what next. On Saturday I visited a bar in Alexandra Palace, the site of a now closed racetrack and it got me thinking I might like to extend the challenge in that direction as well as into the other 23 tracks in Ireland not visited. Europe also awaits as do the top race meeting in the world such as the Kentucky Derby.
Now we have completed the original idea of all UK tracks the new challenge is to turn the information gathered into a new book. The plan is to release this in January 2022.
