Ayr
The first official meeting at Ayr, as recorded in "Weatherbys Racing Calendar" took place over 200 years ago in 1777, though there is evidence of racing in the area as far back as the sixteenth century.
The inaugural running of the Ayr Gold Cup took place in 1804 and was won by the horse Chancellor who repeated his success the following year.
In 1824 The Western Meeting Club was formed and this was the year that the Racing Calendar first recorded the Ayr fixture as the "Western Meeting".
The meeting steadily grew in significance and prize money for the 1838 fixture totalled £2000 with the two year olds event now being the most valuable race of the season in Britain.
The Ayr Gold Cup did not become a handicap race until 1855 with this year also marking the first infamous disqualification. Thomas Aldcroft was on board Lerrywheut when he dismounted before returning to the winners enclosure and was duly disqualified and the race awarded to John Dory.
In the early 1900s it was obvious that a new course would have to be built as the old track was on a very cramped site and modernisation was not feasible. The new course was opened in 1907 and immediately raised racing's profile and within a year there were four regular fixtures.
1950 marked an important date in the progression of Ayr with the staging of its first ever National Hunt fixture which led to Ayr staging the Scottish Grand National in 1966 following the closure of Bogside.
