It’s the home of the second longest race of the flat season, where racing always used to start at 2.45pm so that those working in the nearby mines could attend after their early shifts had finished, and is also the first course to have a dope testing facility.
It's also a track many of you will have seen and not realised you had, with a back straight almost parallel to the M62 and with a stiff climb in the final half mile.
Welcome to Pontefract, coming soon to a terrestrial TV near you. Well, in fact, on Thursday!
The genuine delight when last year the title of Showcase Champion at the RCA awards was bestowed on this much loved and well run West Yorkshire track was a massive plaudit for boss Norman Gundill, Operations Supremo Richard Hamill and his team. Their reward comes with ITV in town for the first time in a generation.
A circuit of ‘Ponte Carlo’ is more than twice the length of Chester, and the track has always saluted its heroes. Gundill, ‘Mr Pontefract’ to so many, still remembers the day Luca Cumani sent High Rise to the track en-route to Derby glory. Then there was prolific juvenile Spindrifter who won 13 of his 19 starts, including three wins and two seconds at Ponte. Both have races named in their honour.
In the last ten years the story of Pontefract has been an amazing one: more Listed and Group racesthan ever before and prize Money on Thursday of more than £70,000 is a remarkable testament to that. The venerable Mr Gundill has even been seen leading the singing on post-race music nights.
But the quite unique Ponte experience is when they go all Yorkshire - they are so proud of the White Rose and Gods Own County in which they are set. Turn the clock back to 2019 and their now extraordinary Flat Cap and Whippet race day. It started with an appeal that brought in 691 racegoers, aged from 9 to 90, and a place in the Guinness World Records as a whippet was made of racegoers all in Flat Caps!
Yes they do things differently at Pontefract, and the crowds have always come and enjoyed the fun, and it is perhaps typical with today's feature race in mind: The Simon Scrope Dalby Screwdriver Handicap. It commemorates a former chairman but also the ultimate course specialist.
In the early 19th century Screwdriver surely became racing’s greatest ever stayer. He won two cup races which consisted of four heats over two miles on the same day - the winner being the horse with the best aggregate score in the four races. They were run over an aggregate distance of eight miles.
Yes they do things differently at Pontefract as TV viewers who have never been there as part of the Go Racing in Yorkshire Summer Festival or any other day are about to find out.
In this desperate year ITV have shone the terrestrial TV spotlight on the delights of Salisbury, Perth and Cartmel. Pontefract is a most welcome and deserving addition.
