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Lord Sebastian Coe OBE turns on the lights at Kempton Park

Kempton Park ran its last race on May 2nd, 2005 to make way for a dramatic redevelopment of its facilities.

The jewel in the crown being the creation of a state-of-the-art floodlit all weather racecourse, capable of accommodating races at any time of year, regardless of weather conditions.

With the development now complete, the season’s first floodlit race meeting, held on Friday April 21st, was watched over by the Chairman of Racecourse Holdings Trust, the senior management team of Kempton Park and distinguished guests including Clare Balding, John Inverdale, John McCirick and Lord Sebastian Coe, who officially turned on the floodlights.

Forming part of an £18m redevelopment of the popular racing venue, Abacus was approached to create a lighting system that would support Kempton’s demanding night time racing calendar whilst minimising the impact of the facility upon neighbouring residents and the local environment.
Through the company’s extensive work in the sports lighting sector, Abacus devised a lighting solution similar to Dubai’s Nad Al Sheba racetrack – famous for hosting the world’s richest horse race.

The Kempton Park project would involve floodlighting the entire 10 furlong race track, the parade ring, saddling enclosure and horse walk, involving 41 masts ranging from 12m to 40m, 600 floodlights, 29km of cabling and the complete build and fit out of a mains room. Given the need to televise races, the lighting specification was co-developed with Racetech, the official TV Company appointed by Kempton to provide the technical services. Overall lighting levels were specified to 750 Lux vertical to main camera for the 2000m racetrack with a lighting level of 2000 Lux vertical to main camera across the finishing line to facilitate a photo-finish of the race.

In order to minimise the impact of the floodlighting system on the local environment Abacus pioneered a unique solution that not only allows lighting levels to be lowered to 30% of the original level between races, but crucially the masts can be lowered and secured when not in use. Based on Abacus’ raising and lowering masts, Abacus engineered a fully automated raising and lowering system, allowing banks of masts to be lowered at the touch of a button.

Geoff Hall, Managing Director, Abacus said:
“Kempton Park has been quick to recognise that the racing industry is evolving. We utilised our in-house team of lighting, electrical, mechanical and civil engineers to design a tailor made lighting system for Kempton Park and the proposals have been well received.

“We have created a lighting solution that offers a highly effective way of contributing to the commercial success of the racecourse, but crucially one that will have a minimal impact upon the local community. I am grateful to Kempton for asking us to contribute to the future success of the course and look forward to seeing the completed project.”

Email: jclark@abacuslighting.com