The charm of Kempton Park largely eluded a sparse crowd huddling beneath the grandstand yesterday. Even on sunny afternoons, London’s racetrack is an acquired taste but news that the flatlands that Arkle, Desert Orchid and Kauto Star once made their own could be turned into a housing estate by the turn of the decade added an air of melancholy to the finger-numbing chill.
Old timers can still recall trips to Hurst Park and Alexandra Palace, two other London tracks long closed, and the fear is that Kempton Park, the next on the list, will not be the last. Simon Bazalgette, chief executive of the Jockey Club, which owns Kempton and 13 other major tracks, assured ITV 4 viewers that this was “a unique one-off position”, dictated by the £115m debt of the Jockey Club, Kempton’s prime position for development and government demands for more housing. But critics of the decision, led by Nicky Henderson, the three-times champion trainer, are gearing up for a long battle.
Henderson won the listed chase yesterday with Vaniteux and then urged the Jockey Club to reveal all the facts and figures about the proposed sale of the 300-acre site and the intention to use the £100m purchase price to upgrade Sandown Park and build a new all-weather track at Newmarket, near the Jockey Club headquarters.
“I know Kempton is not the most stunningly beautiful racecourse in the world but I love it and I love it because it suits my horses,” Henderson said. “This is one of the crown jewels and I’m pretty passionate about saving it. I know there’s a long way to go, but it would be nice to have a dialogue and see exactly what’s involved.”
Just outside the weighing room, Sir Rupert Mackeson, former amateur jockey, author, soldier and owner of Marlborough Books, was not exactly doing brisk business. He knew that his trip here would be more nostalgia than profit. His family have been prominent supporters of racing for generations and the prospect of losing one of the most historic tracks felt like a personal jilt.
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“I began racing at the age of 16 and I’m 75 now,” he said. “This is a serious racetrack, one of the best known in the country and the decision to develop it for housing is pathetic. We’ve already lost Hurst Park and Alexandra Palace in my lifetime. It’s just a short-term, gutless, solution.” Mackeson believes the Jockey Club should follow the example set at Newbury, where the owners have worked with developers to build and protect.
Mike Elkerton MBE, a well-known figure in northern racing as a journalist and commentator, had driven from Cheshire to show solidarity. “A race like the King George is not just part of the heritage of Kempton Park it’s a national heritage, like the Grand National,” he said. “If it’s Boxing Day, it’s the King George. It’s just so sad.”
Henderson’s point, affirmed by fellow trainer Alan King, who won the opening juvenile hurdle with Fidux, is that few courses — certainly not Sandown, the prospective future home of the King George — can produce decent jumping ground in midwinter. “The fences are beautiful and the ground is always respectable,” King said. “We run a large number of young horses round here so I’m shocked by the news. There have been some marvellous horses who’ve won here. It’s part of the tapestry of the sport. We can’t take this lying down.”
The feature race of the afternoon, the Lanzarote Hurdle, was won by Modus, trained by Paul Nicholls and ridden by Barry Geraghty though Sam Twiston-Davies took the riding honours with a treble on Foxtail Hill and Ballymalin for his father, Nigel, and Our Kaempfer for Charlie Longsdon.
These are early days in a fight that could last a decade. Plenty of other courses, notably Aintree, have defied closure notices down the years. But the hardy few who made the journey to Kempton yesterday surveyed the view and despaired that the spiritual home of Arkle and Dessie might be trampled underfoot by the forces of economic reality and the gods of the all-weather.