Just yards from the Cotswold Way, Bath Racecourse occupies a breezy plateau on Lansdown Hill at 238 metres above sea level, making it the highest flat racecourse in Britain. Horses have been racing near Bath since at least 1728, when a horse named Smiling Ball won the Bath Plate, then worth 50 guineas. The course moved to its current Lansdown site in 1811, with the first major meeting held under the patronage of the Blathwayt family.
The track is a left-handed oval of one mile, four furlongs and 25 yards, with a kidney-shaped circuit that means runners are almost constantly on the turn. Its exposed hilltop position means there is no watering facility, so the going can become rock-hard in a dry summer — a peculiarity that trainers must factor into their calculations.
The racecourse has had its share of drama beyond the finishing line. During the Second World War, the flat expanse was requisitioned as a landing field by the Royal Air Force and renamed RAF North Stoke. In 1953, it became the setting for one of racing's most brazen frauds: the Francasal scandal. A gang of crooks entered a talented horse under the name of a poor one — a 'ringer' — and cut the telephone wires to prevent bookmakers from adjusting the odds. They stood to collect around sixty thousand pounds, roughly 1.3 million in today's money. But the bookmakers noticed the dead telephone line, investigators found the severed cable, and the police were called. The plotters were arrested before they could collect a penny.
“In 1953, it became the setting for one of racing's most brazen frauds: the Francasal scandal.”
Today the course hosts over twenty fixtures between April and October, its most prestigious race being the Listed Lansdown Fillies Stakes run over five furlongs each spring.
