Chasewater trotting track – the stadium many will remember derelict – never achieved the elusive success hoped for. Image from ‘Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo and Geoff Harrington.
I’m not going to beat around the bush, a remarkable piece of local history right out of the blue courtesy of Twitter pal Ben Graham who drew my attention to it an hour ago – those interested in the local history of trotting, Chasewater Stadium and Oscar Johnson will find this fascinating.
The BBC archive have published today a short Nationwide TV clip from 1971 about the opening of the Chasewater Trotting Track.
I do question the stadium holding 20,000 people though! This answers so many questions.
So get the sound on, sit back with a brew and enjoy. And if you have any comments, leave them here or mail me: BrownhillsBob at Googlemail do com. Cheers.
#OTD 1971: Do you know a trotter from a pacer? Brownhills was betting on trotting bringing some Ben-Hur thrills to the West-Midlands pic.twitter.com/eaqZHSNCrk
— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) August 18, 2017
RSS - Posts
Wonderfull post, brings back many great memories, I have a big box full of programmes in the garage, Velvet Rhythm is in a lot of them. The greatest trotter ever at Chasewater was TED TROT driven by Johnny Blisset and owned by Joe Watton, he was sold to race in Canada ,helt the British Trot record set at Chasewater.
Hi Freddie
I had the privilege to work for Ben Smart who trained Ted Trot and his Brother Fred Trot but Ted was by far the better horse I used to ride Ted and Fred and take them swimming in the Chasewater lake over at the beach side
I worked with some amazing caricatures to name a few
Bill Howe
Ben Smart
Ian Pimlott
Ray Green
Stevie Lees
Jonny Blissit
Ray Rowley
The Ackers Family one used to drive the starting gate when it was the yellow Land Rover
Horses to many to mention
By Caliburn owned by Micky Willcox
Ted Trot
Fred Trot
Crafty Buck owned by Ken Bannister from The Chase Pub on the A5
Popler Doll owned by Niger Platt from the Old Dolric Brownhills West
I used to work in the dol ric cafe and shop early 70’s know all the plats would love to hear any used to go to the trotting and the names above used to come in the cafe all the time
Great to see the old pictures and the names Bill Harvey
brings back lots of memories.i won the top race of the night .class A pace invitational race the best five from the uk the horse was Hi Ho Hill..i was aged 19yo at the time was a great night for me to beat the best.
tony watson
I was a stable hand for most trainers at chasewater all of the above.
I was there from day 1 until it closed as a troting track
Many happy years.