Racecourses

The short answer is yes, there are, in some cases, although none of them is situated in Great Britain or Ireland. Of course, horse racing is popular in many jurisdictions globally, so your correspondent will leave it to the learned readership to say otherwise, but it appears that there are no racecourses beginning with Q or X anywhere in the world.

As far as the other letters are concerned, rather unhelpfully, the Italian and Russian words for ‘racecourse’ are ‘ippodromo’ and ‘ippodrom’, respectively, both of which, of course, begin with I. More specifically, though, Inverness Raceway is a harness racing track on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, while the Inner Mongolia Racecourse in Hohhot, China is the largest racecourse in Asia, for all that gambling on horse racing has been illegal on mainland China since 1949. The letter J has a few more takers, worldwide, including Jydsk Væddeløbsbane or, in English, ‘Jutland Racecourse’, in Aarhus, Denmark, Jokimaa, in Lahti, Finland, Jarlsberg Travbane in Tønsberg, Norway, Jägersro Galopp in Malmö, Sweden and Jebel Ali Racecourse in Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates, to name a handful.

Racecourses beginning with V are even more plentiful, it seems. The Hippodrome de Vincennes, in Vincennes, in the eastern suburbs of Paris, Hippodrome de Viseo, in Zonza, on the island of Corsica, and Hippodrome des Vignetta in Ajaccio, also on Corsica, are just three of those on French soil. Further afield, Hipodromo de Valencia, in Valenica, Venezuela, is one of three major horse racing venues in the country, while Valparaiso Sporting in Viña del Mar, Chile is the home of the Chilean Derby. Racecourses beginning with Z, though, seem to be a real rarity; Zagrebački Hipodrom, or ‘Zagreb Hippodrome’, in the Croatian capital, appears to be the sole example.

The organisation that became the Horserace Totalisor Board, a.k.a. the Tote, was originally created, as the Racehorse Betting Control Board, by then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, in 1928. His intention was to provide an alternative to illegal off-course betting and to ensure that money from betting was put back into horse racing. The responsibility for the latter passed to the Horserace Betting Levy Board, established by the Betting Levy Act 1961 to compensate the sport for any losses following the legalisation of off-course betting shops, leading to the name change.

Nevertheless, the Tote remained a state-owned, state-controlled organisation until July 2011, when, under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government, it was sold, along with its betting shop estate, to Betfred, the bookmaking chain founded by British billionaire businessman Fred Done, for a reported £265 million. In May 2018, a consortium of investors known as the UK Tote Group bought a 25% stake in the Tote for a reported £20 million and, in October 2019, announced that it had completed the acquisition of the organisation, minus its betting shops, for a reported £115 million.

As far as the first British racecourse to have a Tote facility is concerned, there is a certain irony in the fact that on July 2, 1929 – just a month or after Churchill had retained his Epping seat, but nonetheless been ousted from office – Carlisle Racecourse operated Tote betting for the first time anywhere in Britain. Of course, Tote betting is not for everyone, granted that, as in all forms of pool betting, punters cannot determine the odds of return when striking a bet, but, even so, remains at least as popular as ever with racegoers, especially those who wish, for whatever reason, to avoid the betting ring.