Working together to beat the weather at Leicester Racecourse

Leicester Racecourse is taking on the elements by improving drainage and widening the running line shared by the flat and hurdle tracks, reducing the risk of abandonment due to waterlogging.

A view of the grandstand and home straight. The winning post is absent – also away for renovation!

The popular Midlands course holds 29 meetings each year, racing over jumps from November to March and on the flat from April to October. Apart from a few weeks in March and August there is no let up, so when Pitchcare visited, spring renovations were in full swing.

Clerk of the course Jimmy Stevenson says: “Like everyone else we are seeing the effects of climate change, so the focus is always either on drainage or irrigation.”

A significant programme of drainage improvements began 12 months ago, with contractor Fineturf gravel banding on the straight course on top of existing drains installed some 15 years ago.

Following this, in August 2025 a new main drain and 64 laterals at 2m and 3m widths were added on the back straight on the round course, which dips from the flat and hurdle running line towards the chase course and the brook flowing through the track.

“It’s really low lying in parts, and we’ve found over the last 10 years that we’re getting more and more flooding when we get intense rainfall. Basically, all our drainage system on the whole site goes into the brook and it sometimes struggles to cope when we get extensive rain.”

Clerk of the Course Jimmy Stevenson has been at Leicester for 32 years. 

A large new housing development adjacent to the course may also be a contributory factor, Jimmy reckons.

“Where the brook used to rise within maybe an hour, an hour and a half after a thunderstorm, it’s now about fifteen minutes.”

Further drainage installations will take place this August, with the final phase next year.

The track has also been widened by 4m along a 2 furlong stretch on the outside with the outfalls using 60m of 300mm twin wall pipe to extend the surface.

Drains flow into the ditch which butts right up to the perimeter fence, giving increased scope for rail movements to offer fresh ground in the winter and stand up to the relentless demands of a busy racing calendar.

“Some courses wouldn’t even bother for an extra 4m, but it’s making a huge difference to us,” Jimmy comments. “It wasn’t quite ready for racing on this winter, so we’ve protected it and you can see the improvement – we’ll gain at least 40% extra ground on this part of the track.”

Left: In August 2025 contractor Fineturf widened a section of the hurdle and flat track, installing new drains. Right: The 4m of extra track will make all the difference over the winter, allowing more rail movements to present fresh ground. 

The previous running line bears evidence to the need for the widening: ‘It gets absolutely hammered,’ as Jimmy says.

One challenge for this type of major works is the time aspect, due to the busy programme, he comments: “We’re such a busy racecourse. Fineturf came in on the Monday, we were done on the Friday night, seeded, germination sheets on it, and eight days later, we had grass. We raced on the course again three weeks after that.”

A flood defence system has also been built with an earth bank protecting the track from floodwater on the home straight; Jimmy comments that at times this winter flood water came right up to the top of it.

Renovations post the jump racing season include scarifying, overseeding and top dressing bends and fence take offs and landings, before covering with germination sheets.

Germination sheets – which double up as frost covers – give renovations to the take-off and landing areas of the fixed steeplechase fences a great start.

“They are the same sheets we use for frost covers; it’s a highly labour intensive operation but they make a huge difference.”

The parade ring has also had the same treatment; Jimmy says that it will emerge from the covers like a swan, and always draws admiring comment in the flat season.

MM Terrasport is chosen for overseeding, with its winter growth characteristics chosen to allow an earlier start.

With the track starting to come to life in late March, Jimmy says that it looks like a ‘patchwork quilt’, but with an application of fertiliser soon gets ready for the upcoming flat season.

“That’s another area that has become more difficult; the spring is becoming drier which makes recovery slower.”

Jimmy recalls that back in the day, the mowers would go away to be serviced in September and not be used again until spring; now he can be mowing in December. On the plus side, he is not seeing the hard frosts that can knock turf back.

The brook which runs through the centre of the course is subject to more rapid flooding than was historically the case.

But generally it’s wet weather that has caused the main changes in management. While a Trimax Snake and Pegasus are used for track and infield mowing, John Deere ride-ons are deployed in the winter when it’s too wet to get a tractor on the course and always used on bends and around fences. On the flat track, a Votex front mower and a blower on the back is deployed other than on the bends. 

The former 18-hole golf course at the centre of the track closed a few years ago, and while Jimmy says that this makes day-to-day running easier, it does mean that the area has to be cut for hay once a year. Even here climate change makes its mark: the usual 120 bale yield was reduced to 35 in the hot summer of 2025.

Irrigation is mainly down to pop-ups, with Leicester one of the pioneers of this type of application back in the 1960s. Independent head control means that small areas can be pinpointed for watering, with considerable cost and time benefits. The ring main is fed from a pumping station by the brook; a dam stops the flow of water and directs it into the system via the diesel-powered pump.

Outfalls from the new drains on the extended section of track.

The well-equipped and recently updated machinery shed contains all the kit needed for the team to be self-sufficient: Sisis Litamina and Rotarake, Vredo overseeder, Dakota top dresser, plus a larger Deutz tractor to pull the trailed mowers and blowers.

All of the team of five are qualified for knapsack sprayers while Jimmy and one other can use the Gambetti Barre boom sprayer.

A lightweight John Deere compact does a lot of the track work, including with a Weidenmann Terra Spike.

“When I started here thirty-two years ago, we didn’t have the amount of specialist kit that we do now and it has made a huge difference to the way we can prepare the course. Operating our own Terra Spike, for example, means that we have the flexibility to use it when the timing is just right – we wouldn’t be doing it in March very often but this year the conditions came good to allow it to be really effective.”

The parade ring gets its own ‘glow up’ ready for the new flat season.

New sheds make for easy tipping and delivery of divot mix. In common with the majority of British racecourses, padded hurdles are now in use, making a ‘massive’ reduction to the amount of repairs needed after each meeting. Large stocks of birch sit in waiting for the annual renovation of the steeplechase fences, a major job carried out in the summer alongside maintaining the flat track.

Human creature comforts are also an important part of Leicester’s role as a 21st century sporting venue.

Conference venue, the Kube, provides year-round non racing income and is one of the city’s most popular venues for large Indian weddings. On the course, Leicester was one of the first to implement changes to the weighing room recommended by the BHA to improve jockeys’ welfare.  

It’s a busy programme for Jimmy and his team of five; head groundsman James Jukes has been with him for twenty-five years and others are of similar longstanding.

“You have to have the right team; they need to be prepared for long hours and be flexible, which is not always easy to find. But the improvements that we have made in recent years should help us prepare a better racing surface year-round.”