HORSERACING is set to return to Monmouth for the first time in 86 years later this month, with not one, but two, point-to-point meetings scheduled over the next few weeks.

Races took place at the town’s Chippenham Fields and then Vauxhall Fields for two centuries from the 1730s, but hasn’t been seen since the 1930s.

But now the runners and riders are under starter’s orders once again, with Ross Harriers Hunt set to host the first point-to-point meeting at Monmouth Showground on Sunday afternoon, February 24, followed by the Monmouthshire point-to-point on Saturday, March 30.

The Monmouthshire event, which had been held at Llanvapley near Abergavenny since 1953, was first scheduled to be switched to the Wyeside showground last year, but two attempts to hold the event were scuppered by rain.

But if the going remains good, fans of the ‘sport of kings’ are now set for a bonanza of racing in the town for the first time since 1933, when National Hunt racing at Vauxhall Fields was finally pulled up, ending a 200-year tradition of meetings.

Racegoers might even spot a future star racing, with National Hunt champions Peter Scudamore and Richard Johnson both having saddled up in past Monmouthshire point-to-points before going on to fame and fortune.

Monmouth Races used to be a major event on the horesracing calendar, with a grandstand especially erected for racegoers to watch on Vauxhall Fields.

But it also provided a dark historical footnote, as the flashpoint for an infamous murder in 1927.

A turf war over on-course betting led to well known Welsh boxer Dai Lewis being stabbed to death in Cardiff city centre after returning from Monmouth hours earlier.

Lewis refused to identify his killer on his death bed, but two men – Edward Rowlands and Daniel Driscoll – were later hanged for the crime, despite another man wielding the knife and escaping justice on the grounds of insanity, and eight members of the jury calling for clemency.