Haydock Park is in the middle of a four year project to install new drainage and returf the track, all without disrupting the race meetings. It has thrown up some interesting challenges for Head Groundsman Maurice Crooks and his team, as Dawn Boswell reports
PARK LIFE ... A
sk any member of the horse racing public to name some of their heroes and you’ll hear names like Aiden O’Brien, Martin Pipe, Paul Nicholls, Tony McCoy, Frankie Dettori roll easily off the tongue, but I’ll wager that the name of Maurice Crooks will not be amongst them. But it is Maurice, and his many colleagues, who are the unsung heroes of the racing world, whose behind the scenes work is vital to the likes of you and me enjoying a day’s racing. Lancastrian Maurice, originally from Ashton-in Makerfield, is Head Groundsman and Estates Manager at Haydock Park Racecourse, one of the leading racetracks in the North West of England. It is his remit not only to ensure that the course is fit for racing on race days, but also the weighty responsibility for the safety and upkeep of every outdoor space at Haydock Park. This is no mean challenge for, at 250 acres, Haydock is one of the largest racecourses in the country.
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Being the modest man he is, Maurice is the first to point out that the amount of work required to do the job is not down to him alone. “I have a great bunch of lads working alongside me. Each one knows what is expected of him and they just get on with it.” Maurice’s “cast” of lads comprises thirteen staff of which one is a mechanic, one a painter, two are gardeners and nine are groundsmen but, under Maurice’s refreshingly no-nonsense approach to his work, labels don’t exist and if, for example, a problem crops up, then, in true Lancastrian style, “we all just muck in and get on with it”. After speaking to several of his staff it is soon clear that they have genuine affection and respect for their boss, which is hardly surprising when you discover that Maurice has most probably done their job at some point in the 37 years (yes, 37) he has worked at the racecourse.
He began his career in 1971 as a fence
builder, an unusual career choice for a seventeen year old in, what was then, very much a mining and heavily industrialised part of the world. But, as he explains “I’d always loved horses. I used to come down here when I was just fourteen when Haydock had its own railway station. I’d play on ‘The Heath’ and watch the horses. I even had a few lessons. I feel very lucky that I was taken on at Haydock. After learning how to build fences, I became a tractor driver - every boy’s dream - and then helped out with every conceivable job there was, doing, I suppose, what was a good, old- fashioned, time-served, apprenticeship”. He progressed through the ranks to become Assistant Head Groundsman in 1980, assuming his current mantle of Head Groundsman in 1995. The sheer enormity of scale to keep on top of the job is a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge. For Maurice and his team there is the immediacy of the usual daily tasks to be dealt with. On the non-
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