Great Leighs once had a lion's head over the outlet. In 2008, Great Leighs became home to the first new racecourse in 80 years, when the nearby Essex County Showground was converted into a state-of-the-art horse-racing venue. Great Leighs Racecourse held its first race meeting on 20 April 2008 and staged its first meeting fully open to the public from 28 to 29 May 2008. However, the course had its temporary licence revoked on 16 January 2009 and did not seen racing again unto 11 January 2015. Great Leighs Great Leighs is a village in the City of Chelmsford district of Essex,
Fair Grounds Race Course Race Course. In 2009, the Horseplayers Association of North America introduced a rating system for 65 Thoroughbred racetracks in North America. Of the top Fifteen, New Orleans Fair Grounds was ranked #12, behind Evangeline Downs in Opelousas, Louisiana, which was ranked #6. As early as 1839 Bernard de Marigny, Julius C Branch and Henry Augustine Tayloe (son of John Tayloe III of The Octagon House, national leader on turf at the time, founder of the Washington Jockey Club (1798), who imported the great English thoroughbred Diomed that sired Sir Archy-whose progeny include Lexington, Secretariat and American Pharoah; the grandson of