Great Leighs out to cash in on America

The card would be a huge coup for a track whose delayed opening has dented its credibility.

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Track chairman John Holmes said: "We have been in serious dialogue for a year. We are not seeking to stage the Breeders' Cup but our left-hand track will be a perfect testing ground for America.

"By racing up to 10.30pm under floodlights, we will dovetail straight into a raceday over there. We've got a very good chance of attracting sponsors from America and Canada and have already got an offer of around £500,000. It's not bullshit, it's real. That would give us the best money on dirt ever in this country within six months of opening.

"We are talking to two (TV) networks in America and we'd like it to go on September 27. It would probably be a 10-race card and could be one of the biggest days in this country."

The first official trials at the floodlit Great Leighs will take place on Friday and the first new track in Britain since Taunton, in 1927, is planning to begin racing on Sunday, April 20. The opening six meetings will only to be open to connections of runners and invited guests.

Ironically, it will stage the trials in the week the BHA's strategic fixture review group made major recommendations for the 2009 Fixture List.

Alongside plans revealed on Monday to bar the lowest rated horses and promote a programme of valuable Saturday Premier fixtures, is a proposal to reduce the number of floodlit winter fixtures, a plan bound to stir conflict with bookmakers and at tracks such as Great Leighs and Kempton, who have just invested so heavily in being able to fill this relatively new market.

Holmes, who once threatened to create his own racing show if his racecourse ambitions were barred, is unlikely to be amused by both the change of policy and the timing of its announcement.

Be prepared for fireworks. But setbacks have been par for the course at Great Leighs.

When the first paying customers are admitted at the two-day midweek meeting on May 28-29, the backdrop will be huge mounds of earth which is still much more construction site than Chester.

The first through the turnstiles will need imagination to tap into Holmes' vision. The project, originally due to open in October 2006, has been dogged by bad weather and a much-delayed and largely unsuccessful Land Registry compensation claim for £9million.

In place of the permanent grandstand, for the foreseeable future, is a temporary, albeit luxury structure last seen at the K Club for the Ryder Cup in Ireland. It invites comparisons with construction calamities like Wembley but Holmes feistily fights his corner.

The whispers suggest that he has run up unmanageable debts — close to £1.5m has been spent bidding for over 100 fixtures that could not be stage and penalties for failure to meet those obligations — are angrily rejected.

Holmes insists the original project-estimate of £40m holds true with £28m already swallowed up.

His commitment, he says, can be gauged from the fact that he rejected a huge offer sell up.

Holmes said: "I could have had in my pocket as much cash to walk away with as this place has cost and left all the debt behind.

"We've been battered by the storm. One of the things that does frustrate is that there is a very small number of people out there who are keen to criticise what we do.

"This time last year we were just starting to have five months under water, with ducks on the home straight. Even I can't walk on water — and I certainly can't build on it."

Great Leighs must now prove it can swim and not sink.