Archive for August, 2010

Doncaster is the oldest and in terms of physic capacity, the largest horse racing centre in Britain. Records of regular horse race meetings date back to 16th century, while in 1600 the corporation tried to put an end to the races, but in 14 years they acknowledged their failure and marked down a racecourse instead.

Active stagecoach trading took place in Doncaster since the 16th century leading to fine horse breeding traditions. This created an opportunity to have horse races due to the widespread horse breeding and training traditions. The first and actually even nowadays the most important race was Doncaster Gold Cup established in 1766. This, in fact, is the world’s oldest continuous regulated horse race. Ten years later the racecourse moved from the initial place to its present location and from there on, world’s oldest classic horse race St Leger Stakes, named after Colonel Anthony St Leger, takes place. In this race 5 horses compete and it’s the fifth and final Classic of the British Flat racing season still remaining the world’s oldest classic horse race.

In 1992, the historical first ever Sunday meeting of British racecourse took place. Despite no betting was allowed, still remarkable 23,000 people showed up.

Doncaster is a left-handed, pear-shaped track of around 1 mile 7½ furlongs which is mostly flat. There are courses for Flat racing and National Hunt racing. The centre was reopened in 2007 after significant renovation with new stables, grandstand, exhibition centre and bloodstock. Being opened for the trial of St Leger Stakes, it was opened with a celebration just two days before the actual race opened by Princess Royal presented with a box of Parkinson’s Butterscotch, a traditional Doncaster sweet.

To feel the excitement and sight the speed and muscular power of racing horses, a rental car might become handy. For this Avis, Hertz, Europcar, Budget, Sixt, Alamo, National & Thrifty Car Rental are among the most popular ones in Doncaster.

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Doncaster is a large town in South Yorkshire, England. Located around 32km from Sheffield, it is often referred as “Donny”. In recent years it has shown marks of intensive development considering the expansion of shopping centre and transport interchange named Frenchgate Centre. Also Education City’s campus is in development being the biggest educational investment of kind in England at time.
From late 18th to 20th century Doncaster has showed great industrial potential mainly due to its richness of deep seem coal lying underneath the area. In the light of Industrial Revolution a railway and locomotive industry was established because of the sites good location and connection to other areas as well as the locals’ high expertise in specialist metal works. During both World War railway industry was enhanced into munitions factory. An extensive housing program was carried out growing the city in rapid speeds.
Doncaster is also famous for its 19th and 20th century confectioners including Parkinson’s the Butterscotch inventers, Nuttalls Mintoes and Murray Mints.
Today’s Doncaster is housing numerous distribution centres thanks to its proximity to major urban centres and good motor and railway infrastructure, for example The International Rail Freight Centre at Black Bank is transporting good to Europe via rail. Large companies such as Tesco, Next, Ikea and Exel have their huge warehouses and logistic centres located there. The B&Q Distribution centre was the largest free-standing warehouse I the whole UK. Doncaster was granted Fairtrade Town status on 5 March 2004.
Although becoming the largest coal mining area in the beginning of the 20th century and rapidly growing in any terms Doncaster, like many other coal mining-dependant areas, received a significant strikeback in the 1980s as several pits closed causing the whole economy to slow down. Today’s tendencies show that Doncaster is one of the most rapidly growing areas in UK having an average growth rate around 16%.
Access and moving around Doncaster is easy. Using the fine infrastructure a rental car is a great way to explore around. Avis, Hertz, Europcar, Budget, Sixt, Alamo, National & Thrifty Car Rental are the most popular car hiring companies around Doncaster.