Southwell racecourse
Southwell racecourse launch day
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NewsTranscript
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.