At their March meeting the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) Board considered an application from Chelmsford City Racecourse for the addition of a turf track on the inside of their existing All Weather track. The application was not approved at the time, but more information was requested in order that the Board could reconsider the application at a future Board meeting.

Following further discussions between the BHA’s racecourse inspectorate team, PJA safety officers and racecourse representatives, and the provision of further information by the racecourse, the BHA Board has now approved Chelmsford City Racecourse’s application to install a turf course for flat racing, subject to certain conditions:

1. Due to the track design and restricted number of race starts, other than in exceptional circumstances, and at the discretion of the BHA, no more than three turf races will be programmed on any BHA fixture allocated to the racecourse, with all other races on the card to take place on the All Weather track.

Chelmsford City is strongly encouraged to adopt the same limit on the number of turf races at racecourse fixtures. The limit of three races could be reduced further in the event that, ultimately, the safety factor at any of their planned race starts is less than 10.

2. At this stage, no turf races will be approved to take place in 2019 and all Chelmsford City Racecourse fixtures will be allocated to take place on the All Weather. This will be revisited once further progress has been made on the construction of the turf track, with a decision on the timing of the first turf races not required until the details of the races at each fixture are published in the programme book.