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NOT A SOUL IN THE PARK: Rolf Johnson on the decline and fall of Kempton

Four years ago I was told, categorically, by a prominent Jockey Club panjandrum that Kempton, begun 1878, was being sold and its history including memories of Arkle and Desert Orchid would not save it.

Kempton Park track view

Sixty-three years previous, Kempton’s sister course Hurst Park, not even a lazy crow flight across the Thames, closed – ‘developed’.
Now Kempton is being touted for a similar burial. Kempton’s three hundred acres were ‘mined’ for gravel; its courses, notably the straight six furlongs and the Jubilee course of ten furlongs poking out towards Hampton Court, are long g...

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