Proposals have been made to the British Horseracing Board and, vitally, to the trustees of the palace. Not since Chepstow in the 1920s has a new racing venue seen the light in Britain but there are drawing-board plans for several new tracks, with proposals by Arena Leisure for one at Thurrock, in Essex, leading the way.History and a ready-made racecourse may yet see Alexandra Park pip them at the post. The key to the project is getting the support and enthusiasm of the community; without that it stands no chance. But my one ambition is to see the frying pan reopened and anything I can do to help, I will.”While FFK may not match John McCririck for after-life commitment to Alexandra Park, they are nevertheless resolute in pursuit of viable racing for north London, citing a monopoly of racetracks to the south-west of the capital.Rescuing Alexandra Park from the graveyard is the latest in a stream of proposals to open new racecourses in an attempt to buck a long trend for closing them.

So why reopen it at all? Will it succeed second time around, or merely be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire?”There’s a lot more money now in recreational activities than there was in the 1970s and it’s the perfect time to reopen Ally Pally as a community based, corporate funded, family oriented venue,” Farrar says.It is an opinion endorsed by the pundit John McCririck, who is so enamoured of the course that he wants his ashes scattered at its furlong post.”London needs a course at its heart, like Longchamps, which has a fantastic atmosphere Evenings at the Park had the same quality, he said. Racing began at Alexandra Park in 1868 on a uniquely shaped track that could stage races over only three distances: five furlongs, one mile and one mile five furlongs.With the five-furlong start obscured by trees and the impossibility of an uninterrupted view of round- course races, the track was eccentric rather than user-friendly. Jockeys, too, found the course far from hospitable, many agreeing with Willie Carson’s verdict that the place wanted bombing.The critics won the day and, despite gaining in popularity when evening racing was initiated in 1955, the course was closed 15 years later. Only collections of race-day memorabilia at local pubs such as the Starting Gate and Victoria Stakes and the ghost of an outline of the course itself betray any of its past. Since its closure in 1970, the course has slumbered quietly at the base of Alexandra Palace, dog walkers striding unaware past the still existing rails. But now, the thunder of hooves could replace the thud of wellies with a proposal by a local company to resurrect the course.

Success would see City crowds dropping their stress levels and picking up their betting slips within 16 minutes of finishing work, courtesy of a direct rail link from Moorgate in the heart of the city to Alexandra Park.
Noel Farrar, Jim Fahey and Jon Kanareck, under the name FFK Racing, are the architects of the project – one of a number of independent proposals jostling at the starting gate for permission to develop at the Palace, which is regarded as a financial white elephant by its governing borough of Haringey, north London.Despite its history, the course barely flickers in recent local memory. Celebrated for its atmosphere but reviled for the treacherous twists and turns of its “frying pan” shape, Alexandra Park was nothing if not controversial. IT WAS the quirkiest course in Britain. He led the Buick Open in Grand Blanc, Michigan, by four strokes going into Sunday’s final round, but he shot 71 to allow Tom Pernice to overtake him to win by a shot.. A total of 29 Americans are in contention for the 10 automatic spots, with only five certain of their places.