Chepstow Racecourse is marking its 100th anniversary this month, having opened in August 1926 on land bought from the Piercefield Park estate in Monmouthshire. The Welsh venue has become a fixture of British horse racing, hosting the Welsh Grand National, Wales's richest race, for more than 70 years, and is one of only a handful of courses staging both flat and jumps racing year-round.

The course was founded by ten local dignitaries who funded the near two-mile track, which drew about 20,000 spectators to its first meeting. It nearly closed within its first decade due to financial troubles, and was later requisitioned as an RAF base during the Second World War. Highlights over the century include Sir Gordon Richards' world-record run of 12 consecutive winners in 1933, and the story of Dream Alliance, a horse bred on a Blackwood allotment by a syndicate of friends, whose recovery from injury to win the 2009 Welsh Grand National inspired the film Dream Horse.