Second Race Meeting – A Big Disappointment Dundee’s second race meeting during the first week of the July ‘Dundee fortnight’ proved less of a commercial success than the inaugural meet. Blamed on bad weather fewer than 3000 turned up for the first day of racing and only around 2000 for the second day. Three bookies were reported arrested by the Telegraph for ‘... alleged welshing and other shady tricks associated with the sport of Kings’. One bookie decamped after the favourite, Preston, came in on the first race owing debts of £20. Apparently, several players from Dundee Football Club had placed their money with the absconding bookie. A reference to the third race meet of the season at Longhaugh comes in Gahan’s Diary, an entry dated Thursday 16th October, 1924:‘Two young men and a lady come in to see about some painting and George leaves with them to see about it. George comes back. He says one of the gentlemen told him a good joke: A young sailor landed in town. The races were on. The markings on the bookies boards gave the different starting prices for the horses. There was one, ‘Prince Rose,’ an outsider that stood at the long price of 40 to 1 The sailor said, ‘I’ll put £5 on ‘Prince Rose’ for luck’. It came in first. He went to the bookmaker and got the money. Bookie said, ‘You are not a customer of mine. Why did you back that horse?’ ‘Well!’ said the sailor, ‘it had the same name as a ship that I sailed in for five years. I went twice round the world in her, so when I saw the name on the board, I just put a fiver on it for luck!’ The bookie said, ‘You got the luck all right, but I wish to God you had sailed on the ‘Titanic’!’
Dundee Racing Venture Comes to a Close The Telegraph of Saturday 28th March, 1925, reported news of the winding up of Dundee Race Meetings Ltd, ‘... the Company cannot, by reason of its liabilities, continue in business...’ It was moved that John Rattery Flockhart, chartered accountant, be appointed liquidator for winding up the company and distributing the assets. It is not known who all the directors of Dundee Race Meetings Ltd were, however, one was a Mr McIntosh who owned a public house license in Dundee and was also a Director of Dundee Football Club. Although the business was formed the previous year with a capital of £5000 and the inaugural meeting had indicated good signs for the new venture, the second and third meetings failed to live up to the early promise and attract the necessary crowds for commercial success. The final winding up notice showed a deficiency of £401 in the accounts with realised assets amounting to creditors and share capital being paid at quite a generous amount of 15 shillings and tuppence in the pound. It seems that the company jumped ship quite early on for such a promising enterprise, almost expecting instant success after only one season before the Longhaugh races had really become an established part of the racing calendar. What would the area have become if the races had succeeded and endured like the Perth and Ayr racecourses? There may have been a completely different future and experience for all those people who lived and raised families in the housing estates of Whitfield and Fintry, which absorbed the racecourse area in the post-war years. And what of all those children who have passed through Longhaugh Primary school - right at the heart of the old, ill-fated racecourse? Where would they have spent their formative years had Longhaugh continued to resound with the gallop of hooves and cheers of the crowd?