Chepstow Racecourse is a thoroughbred horse racing course located just north of the town of Chepstow in Monmouthshire, Wales, near the southern end of the Wye Valley and close to the border with England. It is one of 16 racecourses operated by the Arena Racing Company and is home of the richest race in Wales, the Coral Welsh Grand National. Track and facilities The track is a roughly oval circuit of just under . It is a left-handed undulating course, used for both flat and jump racing. The finishing straight is about in length, with five fences on the chase course to be jumped. There are eleven fences on a complete circuit. There is also a straight mile course. There were 31 fixtures in the 2022 calendar year including the two-day Unibet Jumps Season Opener with just under £400,000 of prize money on Friday 7 October and Saturday 8 October. This meeting featured the £75,000 Wasdell Group Silver Trophy (Handicap Hurdle) and the £50,000 Grade Two Unibet Persian War Novices' Hurdle. The £150,000 Coral Welsh Grand National took place on Tuesday 27 December 2022. This meeting also featured the Coral Future Champions Finale Juvenile Hurdle, Chepstow is one of three racecourses in Wales, the others being at Bangor-on-Dee and at Ffos Las. It is also used as a venue for numerous other indoor and outdoor events, such as concerts, weddings and conferences. History Several places in South Wales had race meetings in the late nineteenth century and there had been racing at St Arvans, very close to the present course, between 1892 and 1914. In 1925 a group of ten South Wales gentry and businessmen, that included Courtenay Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar who was also Lord-Lieutenant of Monmouthshire, and Lord Queenborough; formed a company to purchase Piercefield House, and lay out a new racecourse in its estate. Despite struggling to raise enough cash, the racecourse was opened on 6 August 1926. The first race was a two-year-old seller won by Lord Harewood's colt Conca D'Oro, the 7-4 favourite. The two day flat race meeting had good prize money and was termed "The Welsh Goodwood". The course nearly had to close down immediately after the first meeting and survived only thanks to a large bank loan guaranteed by the directors. Unforeseen extra costs in laying it out meant that it struggled financially for the first ten years of its existence and