Dear Old Ally Pally

Alexandra Park affectionately known as Ally Pally was a popular racecourse situated alongside Alexandra Palace near Muswell Hill in Greater London. The track often described as "Frying pan shaped" or "Pear shaped with a stick attached", had 2 loops coming off the home straight. Apart from 5 furlong races all of the other races were started in front of the winning post and run the opposite way of the course. In actual fact the track could only stage races over three distances... five furlongs, one mile 60 yards, and one mile five furlongs! The course opened in June 1868, during WW1 it was used as an army depot & prisoner of war camp and in WW2 as a military depot. Racing was held at the track for 102 years until its closure in September 1970.

Even today there are still remnants of evidence that a racecourse existed here  in times gone by, as can be seen from the picture on the left of the loop this section of the racecourse rails are still in place just as they were when racehorses thundered around the treacherous bends. Further evidence can be found of the  original track layout when seen in an aerial view on Google Earth with it's loop being abundantly clear.



“A Long Time Gone” a book by Chris Pitt which can only be described as a fantastic and important historical record of racecourses that disappeared has a wonderful chapter on Ally Pally which gives a true insight into what some jockeys thought of the place. In Chris’s book it’s clear that whilst Ally Pally found favour with the punters it wasn’t quite as popular with the jockeys and many were glad to see the back of its treacherous twists and turns… The place wanted bombing insisted Willie Carson whilst Ray Still stated that he broke out in a cold sweat every time he thought of it. Geoff Lewis bucked the trend though he said it was a great character track which he put in the same concept as Hong Kong’s Happy Valley with similarities like the crowd all around the 1mile 5furlong start which Geoff thought was great and that some of the atmosphere has left racecourses now that Ally Pally as gone. Although the jockeys prayed it didn’t rain half an hour before racing as the turf which was usually hard or very firm as covered in clover and became very greasy, the camber also inclined the wrong way but Geoff felt that some of them loved it because they feared it.




Geoff Baxter

 Geoff Baxter has an amusing recollection of the unique hazards of Ally Pally especially when the last race of an evening meeting was run and the light was fading… Geoff recalled riding as an apprentice at the track in the last race of an evening meeting; he said he came round the loop about fifteen lengths clear and started to wonder whether he was going the right way, the loop seemed to go on and on and on and he wasn’t sure if he’d end up going around again… it was so dark all he could see as a guideline was the lights from houses and people standing in their gardens waving torches!


George Duffield rode the last ever winner at Ally Pally on David Robinsons Acrostole trained by Bob Smart… George’s recollections of Ally Pally were that the track was very tight and slippery, with the camber running away from the inside rail he said you got trouble even when there were only four or five runners and that in his opinion nobody really enjoyed riding around there and that they weren’t sorry when it finally closed.

Since its closure in 1970, the remnants of Ally Pally racecourse has existed little noticed as it sits below Alexandra Palace, people stroll by some blisssfully unaware that a racecourse ever existed there even though they may pass the parts of the old track where some of the rails still exist. However there have been projects dreamed up by various investors from time to time over the years hoping to resurrect the racecourse and bring horse racing back to Muswell Hill, sadly though these up to this point in time have never proved to advance beyond the stage of more becoming more than a dream and the likelihood of racing ever returning to Ally Pally is at the very least extremely remote.