Stand on the Moulton Road early on a weekday morning in October and the town explains itself. Strings of racehorses climb Warren Hill in single file, breath steaming, riders hunched over the withers, while cars wait patiently at the horse crossings below. Newmarket has around 3,000 horses in training across roughly 70 yards, and on the Heath the racing year is not an event but a daily routine. This month that routine spills on to the Rowley Mile for seven days of racing, including one of the most important afternoons in the European calendar for two-year-olds.
The October 2026 fixtures
All of this month's meetings are on the Rowley Mile, the course used for spring and autumn racing. The July Course, on the other side of the Devil's Dyke, rests until next summer.
- Saturday 3 October: Sun Chariot Day, built around the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes for fillies and mares over a mile.
- Friday 9 October: Dubai Future Champions Festival, day one, featuring the Group 1 Fillies' Mile for two-year-old fillies.
- Saturday 10 October: Dubai Future Champions Day, with the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes and the Cesarewitch Handicap.
- Wednesday 21 October: Two Year Old Day.
- Thursday 22 October: October Thursday.
- Friday 30 and Saturday 31 October: The Final Meeting, which brings the Rowley Mile season to a close.
How a heath became headquarters
Racing here begins with royalty. James I came to Newmarket to hunt and hawk, and the first recorded race on the Heath, in 1622, was a match between horses owned by Lord Salisbury and the Marquess of Buckingham. It was his grandson Charles II who made the town fashionable. He moved the court here for the racing, instituted the Newmarket Town Plate around 1665, and in 1671 rode the winner of it himself, still the only reigning monarch to have ridden a winner. His favourite racehorse was called Old Rowley, a name that attached itself to the King as a nickname and, eventually, to the course. Every time a commentator calls the field into the Dip on the Rowley Mile, he is naming a horse that belonged to Charles II.
The remains of the King's palace still stand in Palace Street. Palace House now forms part of the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art, formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 3 November 2016. It brings together the National Horseracing Museum, the British Sporting Art Trust's collection and, in the Rothschild Yard built by Leopold de Rothschild in 1903, retired racehorses looked after by Retraining of Racehorses, the sport's official welfare charity. Visitors can meet these former racehorses at close quarters, which tends to be the part children remember.
The Jockey Club, formed around 1750 among aristocratic owners in London, moved its base to Newmarket in 1752 and settled on the south side of the High Street. Its Rooms, given their present frontage by Sir Albert Richardson in 1933, became the seat of racing's rules and discipline for the next two and a half centuries. Across town, Tattersalls, the bloodstock auctioneers founded in 1766, bought the stables at Park Paddocks in 1870 and held their first sale there in July of that year. Their October Yearling Sale, held in the early part of this month, is billed as Europe's premier yearling sale, and its Book 1 sessions draw buyers from around the world to the sale ring off the Bury Road.
Then there is the Heath itself: around 50 miles of turf gallops and 14 miles of artificial surfaces, with names that trainers use like street addresses. Warren Hill is where the strings come to stretch their legs in view of the public. The Limekilns is prized by trainers for the quality of its old turf. The National Stud, which moved here in 1966 and has belonged to the Jockey Club since 2007, offers guided tours that explain the breeding side of the industry.
For the seasoned racegoer
The Rowley Mile is a straight course of a mile and a quarter, wide and galloping, with gentle undulations towards the area known as the Bushes, two furlongs out. The penultimate furlong runs downhill and the last climbs back up, which is the Dip. Horses that have been ridden too keenly meet the rising ground and stop; those with stamina in reserve come late and wide. Longer races begin out on the Cesarewitch course and join the straight after a right-handed turn, giving the Cesarewitch its distinctive L shape over two miles and two furlongs.
The Dewhurst is the reason the serious form students come on 10 October. Founded by Thomas Gee in 1875 as the Dewhurst Plate and named after his stud at Wadhurst, it is run over seven furlongs and its first four winners all went on to win Classics the following year. The roll of honour reads like a list of the sport's greats: Nijinsky in 1969, Mill Reef in 1970, Grundy in 1974, Frankel in 2010. More recently St Mark's Basilica (2020), Native Trail (2021), Chaldean (2022), City of Troy (2023), Shadow of Light (2024) and Gewan (2025) have won it. City of Troy went on to win the 2024 Derby, which is exactly the kind of line the race is valued for. Read the Dewhurst alongside the following spring's 2,000 Guineas, run over the same ground.
The Cesarewitch is a different sort of puzzle. It was first run in 1839 and named after the Tsarevich Alexander, later Tsar Alexander II, who gave the Jockey Club £300. With the Cambridgeshire, run here at the end of September, it forms the Autumn Double; only three horses, all in the 19th century, won both. Aaim To Prosper is the only horse to have won it twice in modern times, in 2010 and 2012. The 2025 running went to Beylerbeyi under Billy Loughnane. It is a big-field handicap, so the draw and the pace matter as much as the handicap marks.
Earlier in the month, the Sun Chariot Stakes honours the filly who won the fillies' Triple Crown in 1942, when wartime restrictions meant all three races were run at Newmarket. Sahpresa won it three years in a row from 2009 to 2011. On the Friday of Future Champions weekend the Fillies' Mile, transferred from Ascot in 2011, has its own record of pointing to Classic fillies.
For a first visit
Racedays here are relaxed. Newmarket asks people to come dressed to feel their best, with no strict formal code in the main enclosures, though many make an effort for the bigger Saturdays. Under-18s go free with a responsible adult at these meetings, subject to the course's conditions.
Arrive in time to spend a few minutes at the parade ring before each race. Look for a horse that walks with purpose and a relaxed head carriage; one that is sweating heavily on its neck or flanks, or fighting its handler, may be wasting energy. Then walk out to the rails, because on a straight course you watch the field come towards you head on, and judging who is travelling well takes practice.
You can bet with the on-course bookmakers, who offer fixed odds, or with the Tote, where all stakes go into a pool and the dividend is shared among the winners. An each-way bet is two equal bets, one on the horse to win and one on it to be placed, so it costs double your stake. Set yourself a budget before the first race and stick to it; betting should stay part of the fun.
Making a day of it in Newmarket
The racecourse lies on the Heath to the south-west of the town, and the town centre is walkable from end to end. Begin at the Jubilee Clock Tower, erected in 1887, and follow the High Street past the Jockey Club Rooms. Palace House and the museum are a short step away in Palace Street, and a morning there sets the afternoon's racing in context. Warren Hill rewards an early start for watching the strings at work, and the Devil's Dyke, the Anglo-Saxon earthwork that runs past the July Course, makes a fine walk with wide views across the training grounds. Newmarket station is on the line from Cambridge and Ipswich, and the A14 and A11 bring most visitors by road.
Before you set out
Gate times, race times, ticket options and travel advice are published on the Newmarket section of the Jockey Club website, along with the going. Autumn weather can cause late changes or abandonment, so check on the morning of the meeting before you leave home.
