Towcester have cancelled Saturday meetings in January – 8th, 15th and 22nd – and plan to stage their ‘Christmas’ on January 29th.
Promoter Kevin Boothby said: “We had a lot of deferrals for the restaurant for the early Saturdays in the New Year with people obviously concerned about Omicron. So in the end we made a decision to stage our Christmas meeting on January 29th and most people chose to re-arrange rather than cancel. We will now have a full restaurant serving the full Christmas menu.
“Overall, the Saturday nights have been very good, even though there were another couple that we would have struggled to break even. Last Saturday it was boosted by a white collar boxing event that we staged during the day. We set up a marquee and had two sessions sold out, each for 425 people. What was pleasing was that a lot of the people stayed on for the dog racing that night.
“Most of them had never been to a greyhound meeting before and they loved it. Not only did we get a big boost to the crowd, we also introduced new people to the sport. On the day the booze bill alone was over £30,000.
“We have so many things planned for next year and I would hope most of them would give us an opportunity to discover greyhound racing. That is just one of the reasons that Towcester is unique in greyhound racing.”
The racing office are currently inundated with enquiries for the special RPGTV sponsored all-open race meeting on New Years Day (all winners £500). Entries close on Tuesday.
The track have bought three new sets of traps which have been adapted to lock into place when they are in situ.
Boothby said: “It should make them more stable. One of the sets will become the new 500m boxes. The old ones will become the new 470 boxes which will be adapted to swing onto the track on an arm rather than remove the inside rail.”
