Nowadays, Wolverhampton Racecourse, a.k.a. Dunstall Park, exclusively stages all-weather racing on the Flat, as it has done since 2004, when the original Fibresand surface was stripped off and replaced with Polytrack, at the expense of the turf course. Wolverhampton was, in fact, the third British racecourse to install an all-weather surface, after Lingfield and Southwell, and did so in 1993, under the auspices of the late Ron Muddle. At that point, the turf course, which had hitherto staged racing under both codes – and, in its time, been graced by the likes of Golden Miller, Reynoldstown and Comedy Of Errors, to name but three – was retained, but its days were numbered; it fell out of use in 2002 and disappeared altogether two years later.
Several sources, including a certain free online encyclopedia, report that the last National Hunt fixture was staged at Wolverhampton in 1993, but such sources are either out-of-date or, perish the thought, just plain wrong. After a four-year hiatus, National Hunt racing returned to Dunstall Park on May 11, 1997, with the running of the aptly-titled ‘Wolverhampton’s Jumping Again Novices’ Chase’ and continued, sporadically, for the next five seasons.
The last winner over obstacles was, in fact, the eight-year-old Light Programme, trained locally by Tony Forbes and ridden by unheralded jockey Eugene Husband, who, on July 15, 2002, sprang a 25/1 surprise, from 4lb out of the handicap proper, in the Ladbrokes ‘Place Bet Here’ Novices’ Handicap Hurdle, over two miles. The winner was originally owned by Khaled Abdullah and had won for Sir Henry Cecil, and newly-appointed stable jockey Kieren Fallon, as a three-year-old, but had failed to trouble the judge in five previous starts, spread over three seasons, under National Hunt rules.