Page 4 - The Co go racing - 27th February

NEWCASTLE RACECOURSE

• Located at Gosforth Park to the north of the city, Newcastle Racecourse has staged racing since 1882 and hosts
major races both on the flat and over jumps. Over the autumn and winter of 2015/16 the course will undergo an

£11m redevelopment which will see a new all-weather surface replace the Flat turf track.

• The highlight of Newcastle’s year is the Northumberland Plate meeting in June, a three-day fixture that also includes
the Gosforth Park Cup and the Chipchase Stakes. Those races are both valuable sprints while the ‘Plate’ – also known
as the Pitmens’ Derby – is a two-mile handicap and often billed as a Northern Hemisphere Melbourne Cup.

• Over jumps Newcastle stages a Grade 1 contest in the shape of the Fighting Fifth Hurdle – a race which, along with
the Christmas and Champion Hurdles forms a ‘Triple Crown’ of top two-mile hurdle races in the UK. Certainly, past
winners of the Fighting Fifth are a who’s who of hurdling champions including Comedy Of Errors, Night Nurse, Sea
Pigeon, Kribensis, Beech Road and Punjabi plus the aforementioned Overturn, who figures on the roll of honour for

both of Gosforth Park’s famous races having won the ‘Plate’ in 2010 and the ‘Fighting Fifth’ the following year.