Chester visitor guide
Chester Races
The oldest racecourse still in operation anywhere, on a silted Roman harbour in the middle of a walled city — and you can watch some of it from the city walls for nothing.
Chester Racecourse is unlike anywhere else in British racing, and the reason is geography rather than tradition. The course sits on the Roodee, a 65-acre meadow immediately below the city walls that was the Roman harbour until the Dee silted up. That leaves a racecourse inside a walled city, overlooked on one side by a medieval rampart you can walk along.
It is also, on the Guinness reckoning, the oldest racecourse still in operation anywhere in the world. The first recorded race here was run in 1539. Nearly five centuries later the meetings still sell out, the city fills, and hotel rates move accordingly — which is the practical thing to know whether you are coming for the racing or trying to avoid it.
The course, and why it produces odd racing
The circuit is a mile and a furlong, flat, and run anti-clockwise. It is thought to be the smallest racecourse of any significance in England, and everything about the racing follows from that.
Circuit: 1 mile 1 furlong, flat, left-handed.
Run-in: 239 yards — very short by any standard.
Site: 65 acres on the Roodee, the silted Roman harbour.
Racing since: 1539, the oldest still operating.
A tight oval with a 239-yard straight rewards a particular kind of horse. Handy, quick, well-drawn types that can hold a position round the turns do well; big long-striding gallopers that need room to build momentum often cannot get organised in time. The draw matters more here than at almost any other British track, and a low number is generally worth having. Jockeys who ride Chester often are worth following, because knowing when to commit round the final bend is a real skill at this course.
The May Festival, and the rest of the season
Chester’s season runs through the summer, but one meeting dominates it. The May Festival is the oldest and biggest fixture of the year and it is where the historic races sit: the Chester Cup, introduced in 1824 as the Tradesmen’s Cup; the Chester Vase, long treated as a Derby trial; and the Grosvenor Gold Cup, which dates from 1744. A four-day meeting was being run here as early as 1745, and the festival itself has been a fixture since 1766.
That is the meeting to come to if you want the full thing — and the one to check before booking a city break, because it fills every hotel inside the walls. Evening fixtures later in the summer are a different proposition: smaller crowds, better value, and a nicer atmosphere if you actually want to watch the racing rather than be seen at it. What’s on has the year’s pattern.
Watching from the city walls
The one piece of local knowledge worth having. The city walls run along the eastern edge of the Roodee, raised well above the course, so from the walkway between the Watergate and the Bridgegate you look straight down onto the track. It is free, it needs no ticket, and on a race day it is a genuine grandstand view of part of the circuit.
Be realistic about it: you will not see the whole course, you will not be near the finish, and you will be sharing the wall with everyone else who knows. But as a way to see historic racing at no cost, in a place where racing has happened since 1539, it takes some beating. Walk up from the Watergate about half an hour before the first race.
If you are going properly
Book early, and book the hotel first
Chester is a small city with a finite number of rooms, and a big meeting empties it. Rooms inside the walls go months ahead for the May Festival and rates rise sharply. If the dates are fixed, sort accommodation before tickets. Where to stay covers the areas, and the North Wales coast is a realistic fallback if the city is full.
Do not drive in
The course is inside the walls, which is wonderful until you are looking for a parking space. On a race day the city centre car parks fill early and roads round the Roodee are affected. Use Park and Ride or come by train — the station is a fifteen-minute walk from the course. Parking in Chester has the detail.
What to wear
The May Festival is dressy — people make a proper day of it, and you will feel underdressed in walking clothes. Summer evening meetings are far more relaxed. Whatever the fixture, it is an exposed riverside meadow: bring a layer, and remember that heels and turf have never been friends.
Plan the rest of your trip
The full story of the Roodee — the cross that gave it its name, the Benedictine nunnery dissolved in 1540, and how a Roman harbour became a racecourse — is on the Roodee and Chester races. Chester in a day is the walking route round the city, eat and drink covers dinner afterwards, and attractions has the other nineteen things worth doing.
Hero photograph: David Smith (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons