Kelso Racecourse

Horse racing in the Kelso area is recorded to have taken place sporadically since 1734 at Caverton Edge, five miles from the town; from 1760 meetings were held there regularly. The meetings at Kelso and Edinburgh were the only ones listed for Scotland in the first annual edition of Weatherby's Racing Calendar in 1773. The annual October meeting for 1793 was extended to six consecutive days and included the staging by the Caledonian Hunt of a prestigious King's Plate race of 100 guineas. Something of a "fiasco" occurred in 1803 when only three horses contested a four race meeting held over four days and each race was a walkover. In 1805 the first race was a walkover by a horse named Honest…