A determined effort to put Lewes back on the map as a training centre is bearing fruit with the opening of a mile-long woodfibre gallop.

Lewes produced a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner (Saffron Tartan) and Derby winner (Charlottown) when trainers like Towser Gosden, Matt Feakes, Tom Masson and Don Butchers were at the height of their powers 50 years ago.

But the training centre went into decline when the racecourse closed in September, 1964.

Now a revival is underway and the gallop will soon be extended to one-and-a-half miles.

Tom McGovern, who trains out of Grandstand Stables by the old racecourse, said: "David Marsh, whose successful business is in computer software, and his wife Jill, bought the place about six years ago.

"Although their equine involvement is mainly in dressage and show jumping, their ambition is to see Lewes back on the map as a major training centre."

The new gallop is the first serious step on the way to realising that dream.

McGovern, in the construction business until he took to the horses 15 years ago, agreed to organise the production of the gallop at cost.

He said: "I have 30 horses in the yard, mostly jumpers and just three for the flat, and the new gallop will help them.

"It is always on a gentle turn and the horses never see more than three furlongs ahead of themselves. I much prefer it to having to work them up a straight six or seven. It keeps them interested and, as it's uphill, they have to work all the way."

Also, the number of trainers has increased.

Until a few days ago, McGovern was the only trainer based at the old racecourse, but he has just been joined by Susan Smith.

He said: "We welcome outside horses. They will have to be paid for, of course, but that's common everywhere."

McGovern rates the old racecourse.

He said: "It is a lovely bit of turf. There's a line of seven schooling fences and a row of hurdles. We have turf gallops as well.

"My son, Michael, looks after them and is a works rider for me as well.

"You couldn't ask for better facilities than we have here now.

"The final race to be run at Lewes 38 years ago was won by a horse named Dante's Inferno. But by all accounts, as a place to train racehorses these days, Lewes sounds like paradise to me."

McGovern is helping to restore a tradition going back 100 years when Shannon Lass, trained by Hackett and ridden by D. Read, won the Grand National at Aintree.

Shaun Spadah, ridden by Dick Rees, won the Aintree marathon in 1921 and the horse's grave is marked by a headstone in one of McGovern's paddocks, where the ashes of his rider were later strewn.

Incidentally, Dick Rees was the uncle of Bill Rees, recently retired as a Jockey Club starter and a leading jockey in his own right in the Sixties and Seventies.

Bill, who lives near Marlborough and enjoys watching his amateur rider daughter Joanna in flat races in the south of England, was fourth in two Grand Nationals on Scottish Flight and on The Beeches in the Sixties. Bill reminded me his father, Bilbie, followed brother Dick by winning the National on Music Hall in 1922.

On the flat, Charlottown's Derby success nearly 50 years ago was backed up by horses owned by the legendary professional punter, the late Alex Bird.

Towser Gosden, father of Manton trainer John, trained Damredub and Best Song to win major handicaps and Precious Heather to the Ayr Gold Cup, all heavily backed by Bird in old-fashioned betting coups.

Jimmy Lindley, a top-flight jockey now part of the BBC TV racing team, is married to the daughter of Matt Feakes, John Ciechanowski, a popular Lambourn work-rider and participant in charity races at the age of 80, rode many winners for Tom Masson before becoming the first trainer to Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum.

If the ghosts of racing past could be seen on the Sussex Downs at Lewes, they might even outnumber those of Lambourn or Malton, if not Newmarket itself.