Newbury racecourse chief says 'punishing times' are behind them
Chief Executive Julian Thick was speaking ahead of next week's Winter Carnival meeting
Last updated 16th Nov 2021
The chief executive of Newbury Racecourse says 'things are going in the right direction' as the course prepares for one of its biggest race meetings of the year.
The course lost more than a million pounds due to the pandemic but recently reported losses had reduced in the first half of this year.
Julian Thick was speaking ahead of next week's Winter Carnival meeting and said 2020 was a challenging time:
"It was very punishing we had to make a substantial amount of redundancies and we lost a lot of money but things are going in the right direction now. The racing is a key part of what we do but we also have a hotel, nursery and catering business on site and for example the hotel closed in March and isn't going to open until January so that's been quite difficult for us"
Julian has been in charge at Newbury for around eight years and in that time ÂŁ25m has been invested in improving facilities and expanding the business. Despite the recent setbacks caused by the pandemic he says they will continue to make improvements:
"The business is in rude health it's in a very robust place, maybe its been set back a little by the difficulties of the pandemic, but we're very confident about the future and we're aiming to kick off another project and start to refurbish some of the internal areas for racegoers in the new year so it's full steam ahead."
He spoke to us at a special public training session which attracted some of jump racing's top trainers and horses including Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls, Colin Tizzard, and Emma Lavelle.
The gallops event was a preview for the two-day Winter Carnival which is the biggest jump meeting the course hosts and includes the Ladbroke Trophy race worth ÂŁ250,000 in prize money.