Community Engagement

Community

Musselburgh Racecourse plays an active role within both the racing and local community. With an average of 27 racedays per year, we provide regular opportunities for owners and trainers to race their horses during both the flat and jump seasons. We also continue to build links with the local community by staging local events and activities throughout the year.

The Musselburgh Racecourse Community Activity Plan
The plan is developing quickly with a variety of events taken place in the last year and lots more exciting plans to come.

Are you a Musselburgh Racecourse Neighbour? Please read our Winter Community Newsletter, click here.

Back in 2014, the team at Musselburgh were inspired to want to do more in our local community. We felt we wanted our actions to have a long-term plan that matched the values, resources, assets and skills of the racecourse to the needs of the community. Since 2014, our community activity has become more defined, and is now embedded within our culture and is supported by every member of staff.

In additional to our local community, we want to provide meaningful links with the racing community. The Racing Industry has a Community Engagement programme - Racing Together - and Musselburgh wants to play its part.

Activities include:

  • Educational outreach: Working with Musselburgh Grammar, the Racecourse stages employability workshops. These focus on providing an insight into Hospitality, Events and Ground care. The children from Musselburgh Grammar were able to learn about how we prepare for our hospitality events and set a table for formal service. We work with Racing to School to bring local school children to the racecourse to apply the mathematical lessons they learn in school to real life scenarios in the racing world.

 

  • Give and Gain: Every year we participate in Racing’s Give and Gain week.  A dedicated week when companies across the racing industry spend time helping their community. As part of our Give and Gain activity we have worked with Olivebank Community Centre to help develop their garden area and completed a litter picking project which saw a team of 12 volunteers picking litter along the beach near the racecourse. In 2024, we supported East Lothian Foodbank by providing volunteers to help sort and weigh donations, make up and label parcels for their clients.

 

  • Racing Welfare Stable staff week: Racing Welfare is a UK charity that supports the needs of Racing stable and stud staff. As part of their official week of activities Musselburgh Racecourse was happy to provide a free meal to all stable staff, special gifts for all stable staff visiting Musselburgh Racecourse as well as increased Best Turned Out prizes.
     
  • Supporting local events: Musselburgh stages a variety of community events and the Racecourse is delighted to be supporting these including the Honest Toun Festival Week.  We also provide over 500 free tickets to charities and local community groups to help with their fundraising initiatives.


Local Community
Musselburgh Racecourse enjoys a close and active relationship with the local community. We work hard to ensure that people within Musselburgh are proud of the racecourse, with its high-quality facilities and through the range of events hosted here.

To ensure we minimise the disruption to our local community we have in place temporary traffic regulations for our events.  To download and read the Temporary Road Restriction and Traffic Regulation Order, please click here.


The racecourse is accessible to families and young people with free admission offered to children 17 years and under (accompanied by an adult) and our popular Family Days include a host of free entertainment such as fairground rides, pony rides and live music. Concession tickets are also available for all racedays (excluding our sell-out Ladies Day). Senior citizens are regular racegoers and a significant part of our local community.

In addition to our year-round fixture programme, Musselburgh is the venue for many community activities, such as Silver Arrow and events connected to The Honest Toun celebrations.

Racing Community
Musselburgh Racecourse is one of a total of 60 racecourses in Britain and is an active member of the racing community. We work closely with the British Horseracing Authority to help promote quality racing and attract new audiences. We actively support Racing to School which helps introduce racing to schools through tailored activity days and educational support packs.

Musselburgh is also part of Scottish Racing which jointly promotes all five Scottish racecourses.