Worcester Racecourse staff are working to restore its facilities for two meetings next week after the course was vandalised overnight on Thursday. Staff arrived at the course on Friday morning to find that the temporary weighing room-built to comply with pandemic regulations-had been broken into and trashed. The stable staff catering facility was also damaged.
“The weighing room has been completely trashed overnight by mindless vandals, and an adjacent one where we have a catering arrangement on a race day,” said Rebecca Davies, executive director at the track. “There's a public right of way through the racecourse and they've broken into the facility. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever, nothing has been stolen or taken, it's just mindless, pointless vandalism.
“The team are sorting through the broken bits, we've had to ring various contractors because it's the jockeys' changing rooms that we are using for racing next Wednesday and Sunday. If we were racing today we wouldn't be able to go ahead, but everyone's been fantastic actually and we've got everything lined up for the companies to come in who provide various bits of equipment that need replacing and changing in time for racing next week. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of wasted money, plus time that we don't really have, but the people that have done it don't see that or think like we do.”
The task of catching the vandals has been handed over to police.
“There's CCTV and that's in the hands of the police, they've got their job to do now,” Davies said. “We're just working through the site and making sure that we can put it back together and that we're fit and ready to welcome racegoers next week. I've been very humbled by the support we've been shown on social media, and also I've had a number of calls and messages this morning from trainers and jockeys and colleagues in the industry.
“It's just the question of 'why?' We'll never know but sadly some people just have a mindset where they think it's acceptable to behave in this way.”
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