Boitsfort Hippodrome gets skating rink, health course and restaurant in €5m plan

The Hippodrome of Boitsfort is set for a new lease of life, after 15 years of abandon, concession holders VO Group said.

The Hippodrome was a popular racecourse from 1875, the only one in the Brussels region and another of the innovations of Leopold II, a fan of horse-racing. However like its counterparts in Sterrebeek and Groenendael, it has lain disused now for years, despite many attempts by supporters to convince the Brussels government to attempt a revival.

The moment seems to have arrived, with an announcement yesterday by VO Group of a €5 million investment plan which would transform the racecourse – where the only activity left is a nine-hole golf course – into a 32-hectare recreation centre.

Renovation of the buildings on the course is the responsibility of the Brussels region itself, minister-president Rudi Vervoort said. The five million laid down by VO Group will cover the installation of a skating rink, and the conversion of the former race-track proper into a “health course” for joggers and walkers. The grandstands (pictured) will house a new restaurant, and the buildings will have a cultural purpose. The existing golf course will remain.

The new plan is “unfortunate,” according to Marcel De Bruyne, director of the Belgian Jockey Club. “Brussels is now the only European capital without a racecourse, just at the moment when horse-racing is seeing a revival”.  However the racing profession itself did little to keep Boitsfort alive. At one point there were rumours of an Arab sheikh ready to invest in the course, but that came to nothing. “We ourselves don't have the resources to take over the course,” De Bruyne said.

image credit: GdML/Wikimedia Commons