Towcester Racecourse History: From Horse Racing to Greyhound Hub

Towcester is a racecourse with two lives. The first began in 1928, when the Northamptonshire venue opened as a National Hunt horse racing track in rolling countryside near the town of the same name. The second began in December 2014, when a purpose-built greyhound track opened inside the existing racecourse — the first new greyhound facility constructed in Britain since Harlow in 1995.

Between those two dates, and since, the story involves aristocratic ownership, ambitious diversification, financial collapse, administration and a comeback that has turned Towcester into the home of the English Greyhound Derby and one of the busiest greyhound venues in the UK. The Northamptonshire comeback is a narrative of reinvention, and understanding it helps explain why Towcester occupies such a distinctive position in British greyhound racing.

Horse Racing Roots and the Greyhound Decision

Towcester’s origins as a racecourse are rooted in the rural sporting traditions of Northamptonshire. The track hosted National Hunt meetings — jumps racing over fences and hurdles — and built a reputation as a testing venue thanks to its undulating terrain. The course passed through various ownership structures over the decades, and by the early 2000s it was controlled by Lord Hesketh, whose family had deep connections to the site and the surrounding area.

The decision to add a greyhound track was driven by commercial logic. Horse racing at Towcester generated revenue on race days, but the calendar was limited — perhaps fifteen to twenty fixtures a year — and the cost of maintaining the course between meetings was high. A greyhound track could run multiple meetings per week, generating consistent income and filling the vast majority of the calendar that horse racing left empty. The dual-use model was not unique to Towcester, but the scale of the investment — £1.8 million for a purpose-built circuit inside the existing racecourse, complete with starting traps, a sand surface, kennelling facilities and the infrastructure needed for licensed GBGB racing — was ambitious for a sport where new construction was almost unheard of.

The track opened in December 2014 and was immediately notable for two reasons. First, it was the first purpose-built greyhound facility in Britain since Harlow opened nearly twenty years earlier — a gap that illustrated how rare new investment in the sport had become. Second, its design incorporated features that most existing UK tracks lacked: wide bends capable of accommodating up to eight dogs, a generous 420-metre circuit, and the distinctive 6-metre uphill finish created by building 60,000 tonnes of imported earth into the track profile. These design choices gave Towcester a character that was unique among UK greyhound venues from day one.

Within three years of opening, Towcester had attracted the English Greyhound Derby — the biggest race in the sport — which moved to the venue in 2017. That coup demonstrated the track’s ambition and its ability to stage elite-level racing, but it also increased the financial pressure to maintain the facility at a standard worthy of the sport’s showpiece event.

Administration, Boothby Era and the Orchestrate Takeover

The commercial model that justified the greyhound track’s construction relied on a combination of racing revenue, hospitality income and the dual-use economics of a venue that hosted both horse and greyhound racing. In practice, the costs of running two sports on one site proved more demanding than projected. In 2018, Towcester Racecourse entered administration — a financial restructuring process that put the venue’s future in doubt.

The administration period was a crisis point. Horse racing at Towcester ceased, and the greyhound operation was at risk of closure. The English Greyhound Derby, which had been staged at Towcester in 2017 and 2018, needed a home for 2019. The uncertainty threatened not just the track but the sport’s most important event.

The rescue came through Kevin Boothby and Henlow Racing, who took over the management of the greyhound operation. Boothby stabilised the track, resumed regular racing and negotiated the return of the Derby from 2021 onwards. Under his management, Towcester established itself as a functional and competitive greyhound venue, though the scale of ambition was necessarily constrained by the financial hangover from the administration period.

The next transformative step came in November 2026, when management transferred to Orchestrate, a company led by Mike Davis, on a ten-year lease. Richard Thomas, CEO of Orchestrate, described the deal as another exciting step in the ongoing development of Towcester Racecourse. The new management moved quickly: Towcester was elevated to PGR status, the meeting schedule expanded from four to five per week, and a significant investment programme began — 300 tonnes of new sand, upgraded maintenance equipment, and plans for a new racing distance of approximately 460 metres.

The Orchestrate takeover marked a shift from survival to growth. For the first time since the administration, Towcester had an operator with a long-term commitment (ten years) and the capital to invest in infrastructure improvements. The track was no longer just surviving — it was being developed with ambition.

Towcester Today: Five Meetings a Week and the Derby

In 2026, Towcester operates five PGR meetings per week, making it one of the busiest greyhound venues in the UK. The English Greyhound Derby remains the centrepiece of the annual calendar, with a prize fund of £175,000 for the winner and a multi-week qualifying process that brings the best dogs from Britain and Ireland to Northamptonshire every summer.

The track’s physical characteristics — the wide bends, the 420-metre circuit, the 6-metre gradient — continue to set it apart from every other UK greyhound venue. These features make Towcester a track that rewards a specific kind of dog and a specific kind of analysis. Punters who understand the gradient, the going and the trap bias have a measurable advantage over those who treat it as just another venue on the fixture list. The track’s data set is growing with every meeting: 2,911 graded races in 2026 provide a substantial foundation for form analysis, and the five-meeting-a-week cadence means that data is accumulating faster than at any point in the venue’s history.

The journey from a 1928 horse racing track to a 2026 greyhound hub has been circuitous, marked by ambition, crisis, rescue and reinvention. What Towcester is today — the home of the Derby, a PGR venue running five meetings a week, a track with unique physical features and a growing data set for form analysis — is the product of that history. The Northamptonshire comeback is not complete; the Orchestrate era is still in its early stages. But the trajectory is upward, and the foundation is more solid than at any point since the greyhound track first opened its traps in December 2014.