Big Buck's On Parade for Newton Abbot Season Finale

Sept. 2, 2010 - PRLog -- South West Racing Club’s Horse of the Year, Big Buck’s, will be on parade at Newton Abbot Racecourse on Monday to mark the end of the course’s 2010 season.

Big Buck’s, owned by The Stewart Family and trained by Paul Nicholls, will be paraded on the course at Newton Abbot for racegoers to see the 7 year old French bred gelding.

Following his second consecutive success at the Ladbrokes World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival this year, Big Buck’s was also crowned 2009-10 Jumps Horse of the Year by the British Horseracing Authority where a public vote on their website saw the gelding take the title from last year’s winner Kuato Star.

Five of the seven races at Newton Abbot on Monday will be sponsored by the South West Racing Club, a local membership organisation of over 1,200 racing enthusiasts. The club organise tours to racecourses in the UK, Ireland and France for its members and regularly sponsors South West based racecourses.

The Monday afternoon meeting will bring another busy season at the course to a close.  The first race of the season in March marked the end of the racecourse’s £300,000 winter investment programme where retired champion racehorse trainer Martin Pipe CBE was invited to open the new stable lads’ canteen.

Despite losing the Easter weekend fixture, Newton Abbot has mainly had the weather on their side with glorious summer sunshine adding the final touch to the hugely popular Ladies’ Day meeting. The June fixture saw unprecedented demand for the VIP suite, with the majority of tickets sold by April.

August brought with it a bumper month of racing with five fixtures, including the flagship two day Summer Jump Festival. The Festival weekend featured the two biggest races of the Newton Abbot calendar with the Lord Mildmay Memorial Handicap Chase, a listed Class 1 steeplechase and the Tote Super 7 Handicap Hurdle offering a prize fund of £30,000.  David Pipe secured a hat-trick in the latter following success in 2008 with Indian Pipe Dream and in 2009 and 2010 with Raslan.

Pat Masterson, Managing Director at Newton Abbot, reflects on a pleasing season: “With all things taken into consideration including the financial climate and the poor summer weather, on the whole it has been another successful season with a number of our fixtures being up on the previous year.”

“The economic conditions have been hard on everyone and it has forced us to think of ways in which we can support local people and companies through these tough times. Our initiatives such as the Super Monday Specials two-for-one ticket promotions and Landlord’s Day have proved to be extremely popular this season, allowing people to enjoy a great value day out whilst also helping drive footfall to other local businesses.”

“On behalf of all of the staff at Newton Abbot I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has visited the course this year for their continued support and we look forward to welcoming you again next year.”

The last fixture of the season gets underway at 2:30pm on Monday 6 September. Tickets are still available and can be purchased online at www.newtonabbotracing.com or by calling 01626 353235.

For all of the latest news on the developments at the course over the winter, visit the website for further information.

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