May 8th marks the start of the new racing season in Chester. We caught up with Louise Stewart, CEO of Chester Race Company ahead of the new season.
Louise was recently named Woman of the Year at the 2024 Women in Business Awards, hosted by Downtown in Business.
Chester Race Company has a number of racecourses including Chester, Bangor-on-Dee in North Wales and Musselburgh in Scotland.
Are you excited for the new racing season at Chester?
Of course! Opening the flat season at Chester with the Boodles May Festival is always something we look forward to. Although I do need to point out that we race all year round with our racecourses at Bangor-on-Dee and at Musselburgh and are busy at Chester in the winter with events and conferences and our other business interests. We don’t take the winter off!
What have you changed for this year to improve / enhance the racegoer’s experience?
We have a new hospitality area opening this year, The Clubhouse, to add to our collection of great raceday experiences. It will have live cooking stations so guests can choose their dishes and watch the chefs at work as they add the finishing touches. It creates a slightly different dining offer to our other experiences, more casual but still the high quality that we are known for. The Clubhouse provides a winning combination – the social aspect that our guests love, combined with access to great race viewing.
We have also worked on theming our racedays. From racing to music, food to fashion, we have something for everyone across all of our fixtures and many reasons to come to more than one raceday. This year we have an exciting Summer Music Weekend, the return of Oktoberfest and an Autumn Racing Food and Drink Festival alongside some of our established favourites.
With so many different, immersive raceday experiences to be had at Chester, at every price point from £10 upwards, we can never rest on our laurels – reinvention and refreshing the offer is a constant need. But, it’s also important to keep working on the basics, so we have been working on the arrival experience, service quality and keeping the site clean and safe. We are making a significant investment in our technology to assist with this, including investment in site wide Wi-Fi.
What are your plans for the future?
There were ambitious plans in place for the racecourse before I arrived and the reasons driving those plans haven’t changed. We are keen to make sure Chester remains one of the UKs leading racecourses so expect to hear more about future plans in 2024.
How have you found your first couple of years as CEO?
It’s been great, hard work and with lots of challenges to overcome, but also fun. We have made a lot of changes to how the company operates. The team have been fantastic in their willingness to adapt. I am really pleased that we have worked hard on our purpose and values and our People, EDI and ESG strategies. I am particularly proud that last year we supported the creation of over £300k of charitable and community value in our local areas, installed solar panels to reduce our energy usage and focused on reducing our plastic and food waste significantly.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The variety and working with great people who are passionate about what they do. And the horses! We are a horseracing company and being part of the life of a thoroughbred racehorse is a huge responsibility. Making sure that our stables, track, facilities and colleagues are all at their best to ensure that the horses’ experience at our racecourses is the best it can be, is critical.
In your previous role, what was it like being CEO of the world famous Alexandra Palace, or ‘Ally Pally’, in London?
Not too dissimilar really! Less horses obviously, but like Chester Racecourse it’s an iconic and historic venue and an important asset to its local community and economy.
How do you relax outside of work?
It has been pretty full on for the last two years but I have managed to find time to get out in the mountains, walking the dog and swimming, quite often combining a few things to fit it all in!
