Plan for greyhound racing to return to Towcester Racecourse next year

The owner of Henlow Stadium in Bedfordshire, Kevin Boothby, has signed a 10 year lease deal to take over Towcester, the Greyhound Star reports.

He expects to re-open the greyhound track inside the horse-racing course in March, 2020, with hopes to return The Derby to Towcester too.

“The paperwork has been signed and I so excited about the future," he told the Greyhound Star.

"I can confirm that greyhound racing will take place on Fridays and Saturdays, and hopefully increasing to a maximum of four meetings per week by next summer."

It was confirmed horse-racing would not be returning to Towcester after its remaining fixtures were sold last month, but events like Winterland MK are still going on.

Greyhound racing ended in August, 2018, when the racecourse went into administration.

Mr Boothby said: “I am absolutely determined that Towcester will be the premier greyhound venue and I intend that it will dominate racing; an English version of Shelbourne Park.

"We had over 1,000 through the gates for Saturday nights at Henlow and I would be confident that with similar marketing, we can at least double that at Towcester.”

Towcester Racecourse has been contacted for more.