Fakenham Races – East Anglia Region Luncheon

National Hunt racing, and spectators, returned to Fakenham in October when the track opened its 2021/22 season with a six-race card.

23 Fellows and guests joined the other 3,000 visitors to the Fakenham Racecourse for the East Anglia Regional luncheon on Friday October 15^th on what turned out to be a very good days racing. We were particularly lucky with the weather and enjoyed a warm, sunny and still afternoon in the North Norfolk countryside. We were assured that this is certainly not the norm.

Fakenham Racecourse has a left handed track of about 1 mile circuit in an almost square format. It has six fences including one open ditch. There were six races in the Sky Sport’s Raceday event’s card, three steeple chase and three hurdles.

David Hunter, Chief Executive and Clerk of the Course welcomed our group to Fakenham giving a light-hearted introduction to the racecourse and an explanation of the day’s proceedings. We are very grateful that David could give up this valuable time on a what would be very busy day for him and the racecourse.

Our group were treated to a warm Norfolk welcome and service was based in the spacious Lancaster Room of which we had use of for the whole day. The room is situated close to the track offering fantastic views of the horses approaching the final bend and into the finishing straight.

Lunch was served and we received generous portions of chicken, seabass or spanakopita followed by pannacotta, chocolate and raspberry torte or cheese and biscuits. The high quality of the food and service we received from chef, Ali and front of house manager, Lucy and their teams helped make the event a great success

It wasn’t long after lunch that we were treated to a very exciting afternoon of racing.

The small fields that were the order of the day did not dampen the enthusiasm of the large crowd as supporters at Fakenham got their chance to return to live racing for the first time in more than a year

Throughout last season strict restrictions were in place due to the pandemic and meetings were held behind closed doors with no members of the public present.

The quality of racing was excellent with most being won by a very short distance.

There was a lot to see during the day in addition to the racing and Fellows and their guests had freedom to visit all parts of the course using the Lancaster Room as their base. When the racing was complete there was time to return to the Lancaster Room, collect our winnings and say goodbye to other Fellows before commencing our homeward journey’s.