Rebecca Davies, Hereford Racecourse’s executive director and clerk of the course.

THE next raceday takes place at Hereford Racecourse on Wednesday.

The course then turns its attentions to December and the Christmas Jumper Raceday on Monday, December 19, so dig out your festive attire out join in all the fun.

Back on September 29, the racecourse’s Rusty Bridge Restaurant hosted a sell-out for a fundraising event for St Michael’s Hospice.

Many of the sport’s best-known personalities, including champion jockey Richard Johnson, trainer and former champion jockey Peter Scudamore with trainers Henry Daly, Tom Symonds and Venetia Williams, were there.

After the event, donations continued to flood in with significant generous contributions from top jumps trainer Jonjo O’Neill and Claude Duval, The Sun’s racing correspondent, who placed a winning charity bet at Hereford’s reopening meeting on October 6.

In the end the racecourse managed to raise an impressive total of £11,000.

The course was delighted that the racing community came together and raised such a substantial amount for the fantastic work that St Michael’s Hospice does in Herefordshire and the surrounding areas.

I am a believer that year end figures tend to average the same with our weather, however, recent years has shown the weather patterns have changed to more extreme conditions with prolonged wet, dry or cold spells. 

September and October were particularly dry and that posed Hereford Racecourse, and many others, a few headaches in preparing the ground.

I know Halo Leisure was crying out for rain for their greens in the centre of the course, as were we for the track by way of example.

With almost no measurable rainfall during October, 39mm (well over an inch) fell with us within 48 hours last week and what a different it has made to our ground. 

The clocks have changed, the days are shorter and moisture tends to stay in the ground for longer now so we look forward to some proper Jump racing ground in the months ahead, all being well!

Winter poses other challenges and we are now investing in fleece type frost covers to help protect our ground when temperatures drop. 

While there is no guarantee they will stop frost penetrating the ground they do offer additional protection and reassurance that as a team we have done all we can to prepare the track for racing in cold conditions.