REGULAR visitors to Chepstow may be aware that our popular clerk of the course Keith Ottesen leaves us this month for a new post as clerk at Newbury Racecourse.

This is a fantastic opportunity for him at one of Britain’s premier racing venues. Although sorry to see him depart, I am pleased he has secured such a high profile job at one of the UK’s top dual purpose tracks.

Keith has worked at Chepstow since 2009 following several years at Uttoxeter Racecourse. He has also been involved at Hereford, Worcester, Windsor, Bath and Ffos Las, and has a wealth of experience of working in racing and stud yards. He has an excellent reputation with trainers, owners, jockeys and racing officials, which has helped Chepstow to attract so many good horses, and such strong fields in recent years.

Some of his personal highlights have been Synchronised’s Welsh National win before he went on to take the Gold Cup, and the Herefordshire-based Lee family’s Welsh National wins with Le Beau Bai and Mountainous.

He says the best performance he has seen at Chepstow was by Gary Moore’s Sire de Grugy, who won here over 2 miles the year before he won the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Being clerk isn’t an easy job, it involves early starts and late nights in tough weather conditions, often at anti-social times of the year. The responsibility for making crucial decisions about race meetings of the scale of the Coral Welsh Grand National in icy or waterlogged conditions is a huge one.

The preparation of the racing surface is a highly technical process, not made easier by the environmental conditions in Chepstow which include varying depths of impermeable rock, and often extreme rainfall. Just last week some of our annual members were lucky enough to walk the course with Keith, it really is fascinating to hear how much work goes into maintaining our track.

The move to Newbury is a big one for Keith, he has lived in Chepstow for a long time and enjoys cycling around Monmouthshire and beyond. However, Newbury is a fantastic track, best known for staging the historic Hennessy Gold Cup handicap chase as well as top quality flat racing, and it is a great opportunity for him.

Our new clerk of the course at Chepstow will be Libby O’Flaherty who has most recently been working as clerk at Worcester and Hereford Racecourses, where she has been since completing her training in 2016. Previously she spent ten years in various roles at Wolverhampton Racecourse, latterly as estates manager.

We are really pleased to welcome Libby to the team at Chepstow. She has done a fantastic job at both Worcester and Hereford in the last couple of years and will bring her experience of working at both of those when she joins us from June to continue Keith’s good work.