A RICH AND FASCINATING HISTORY
There’s been racing in or close to Musselburgh since 1777, when conferences had been organised by the Royal Caledonian Hunt.
After an absence of 27 years in 1816, the game returned to Musselburgh completely at a monitor laid out by the native city council.
Members of the hunt had been, reportedly, so happy with the monitor they distributed a sum of fifty guineas amongst the city’s poor to mark the opening of the course.
Racing has remained on the web site, on the banks of the Firth Of Forth, simply six miles to the east of Edinburgh metropolis centre, ever since.
Scottish tracks had been hit onerous by the legalisation of betting outlets in Nineteen Sixties when racecourse attendances fell throughout Britain. Each Lanark and Bogside had been compelled to shut however Musselburgh weathered the storm. Regardless of just a few bumps within the highway it’s now a thriving, integral a part of the local people.
There’s a nine-hole golf course on the web site, primarily in the midst of the monitor, that predates the racecourse by greater than 100 years. It was the place the Royal Musselburgh Golf Membership was based earlier than shifting just a few furlongs up the coast to its present location at Prestongrange.
The racecourse was known as Edinburgh up till 1996 when it formally adopted the title it was identified by amongst most Scottish racing followers. It’s a twin objective course. The jumps monitor is a right-handed circuit of round a mile and 1 / 4.
As it’s flat and made up of two lengthy straights with two pretty sharp bends, it usually favours horses ridden close to the tempo. The bend going away from the stands is partly made up of an all-weather floor put in because the turf at that a part of the course used to get churned up by the runners when the bottom was heavy.
The Flat course has a 5 furlong straight, which has a slight dog-legged left-hand bend round midway. It is likely one of the sharper dash programs in Britain and the Scottish Dash Cup attracts a number of the quickest handicappers in Britain.
The Listed Queen Of Scots Stakes is the best class of Flat race run on the monitor. Different vital contests are the Royal Mile and the Queen’s Cup. This weekend it’s the jumpers who can be battling it out round Musselburgh.
In recent times, the likes of Frodon, Greaneteen and Mighty Thunder have triumphed on the Scottish Cheltenham Trials assembly earlier than happening to higher issues.
There must be extra future stars on show in what guarantees to be an thrilling two days of racing on the coastal monitor.