NEWCASTLE racecourse is gearing up towards the inaugural meeting on its new all-weather track on May 17th but it has not been a journey without its problems.

Opposition came from all sides when Arena Racing Company (ARC) announced its intention to rip up the turf, replace it with Tapeta and include a one-mile straight – a world first.

At the time, racing professionals – me included – were very unhappy at the prospect of losing such a fantastic turf track with a rich heritage of races, replaced by American-style all-weather racing and the prospect of poor quality racing which ARC has been associated with in the past.

The sight of half a dozen low grade horses racing over a straight mile on all weather is not something racing wanted. Poorer quality horses tend to go too fast in their races and doing that on a straight mile, where there is not a bend in sight to offer a much needed breather, will produce nothing more than a strung-out field of exhausted and pretty useless horses racing for a pittance.

Instead, trainers, owners and jockeys preferred the idea of hosting our much needed and long overdue Northern all-weather track at Catterick, in the heart of Yorkshire, where the majority of trainers reside, and where the loss of the turf would not be considered sacrilege. Nor would we be losing any major races which form part of the all-important race programme in this country.

Having said all that, the track is now laid at Newcastle and it has to be said that ARC has done a superb job of creating what is sure to be one of the very best all-weather racing surfaces and facilities in the country, and even better, the company has promised to put up “proper” prize money.

Chief executive Martin Cruddace has certainly improved not only prize money levels at all ARC’s tracks since his arrival at the helm, but also relations with racing professionals which had reached rock bottom at one point.

It is, therefore, a big relief that everyone is now finally pulling in the same direction for the betterment of racing. Martin and Susannah Gill – ARC’s director of External affairs – have worked hard to turn things round for the benefit of everyone and Newcastle’s latest venture can actually turn out to be a real feather in the cap for horseracing in the North.

According to the Owner & Breeder magazine, ARC has already seen its prize money position rise from 14th to 10th in the first quarter of the year and I am reliably informed that the aim is see ARC in the top ten for prize money.

We took 15 horses to gallop there a week last Tuesday, along with a host of other northern trainers, including Michael Dods, Brian Ellison and Karl Burke. Jockeys riding included my husband George, who thought the track rode “brilliantly, with no kickback and the horses went well on it”. Paul Mulrennan, Tony Hamilton, Ben Curtis, Andrew Mullen and our own stable jockey PJ McDonald also took part and were equally impressed.

They have produced a consistent, safe surface that should suit all types of horses while also making improvements to the parade ring areas, saddling boxes and wash-off facilities for horses. Crucially, the development has provided trainers and owners with a very long overdue all-weather track in the north of England so, despite our early misgivings, ARC deserves our full support.

The only sting in the tail for trainers, however, was the announcement that Newcastle will not be allowing gallopers on the track except on non-race days due to an arrangement with the golf course. This is a big blow for trainers as we all need a facility to take horses away from home and to work them on a racecourse, giving young and especially unraced horses some invaluable racecourse experience.

Newcastle’s hierarchy were aware of this and, hopefully, some arrangements can be made to help us train the horses who in turn will be supporting the track in the seasons ahead.

LAST week was a good week for us when we got off the mark with our two-year-olds, with debutant Rainbow Mist winning impressively at Thirsk for new owner Craig Buckingham.

Craig as established himself as a very successful owner with about 20 horses in training under both codes but this lad was his first ever two-year-old winner.

He is a horse we have liked from his yearling days and he looks like he might have a bright future ahead of him.

Another impressive debutant juvenile winner followed at Beverley when our principal owner John Dance’s filly Twizzel won her maiden in impressive fashion and is another exciting two-year-old for the yard. She is by the top stallion Equiano who has been a lucky stallion for us at Sun Hill.

We have a 30-plus team of two-year-olds for the season and many of them are getting close to making a racecourse appearance.

Our new website is proving very popular with more than 85.000 hits since its recent launch and it’s good to see that the videos of horses working, along with Ann’s Thoughts, are among the most visited pages.