AN EVENING at Worcester Race Course next week is guaranteed to bear fruit as it celebrates the start of the British plum season, the 80th anniversary of the new Pershore Racecourse and revival of the historic Pershore races.

Hailed as the world’s only food-themed racing event, the meeting marks the first week of the month-long Pershore Plum Festival and includes the Land O’Plums Chase, first run at Pershore races in 1899, the Tiddesley Wood Yellow Egg Plum Handicap and the Pensham Hurdle.

Racegoers are being encouraged to wear plum or purple coloured attire and a number of plum-related characters including the Plum Charmer – otherwise known as solicitor Paul Johnson – festival mascot Prunella Plum, the Plum Princess and Queen Victoria will be there to make it a plum event.

Also, it is hoped ripe plums will be available to give to all race-goers on arrival at the meeting and there will be a competition for the best purple outfit.

Chairman of the Pershore Plum Festival Angela Tidmarsh said: “I had the idea for a plum themed racing event in the shower. I knew Pershore used to have races and the main race was the Land O’Plums Chase. We first did it in 2010 and we’ve had it every year since. Worcester Race Course has been absolutely fantastic and we have the whole meeting named after the plum festival.

“It just gets bigger and better each year and the purple theme has really come on. It is also the first engagement for the newly crowned Plum Princess and her attendants. The meeting is great fun and there is a lovely atmosphere. It is one of the feature meetings at Worcester Race Course and one they value highly,” added Angela, who wears purple every day from the start of the festival on Sunday July 26 until the August Bank Holiday.

The Angel Hotel in Pershore, the sponsors of this year's Plum Festival Race night, is holding an exhibition celebrating Pershore's racing heritage at the hotel. Amongst the exhibits is a photograph of the Pershore Plum steam engine. It was used to pull carriages bringing both horses and race goers back in Victorian times.

Pershore’s original racecourse was built in 1870 on Weir Meadows and in the early days many of the horses racing at the Pershore meetings were ridden to the town several days in advance and stables at local hotels.

In later years many of the horses and punters came to the town by a special train renamed the Pershore Plum, thanks to pressure from the National Farmers Union in Worcester.

The original course was prone to flooding due to its location near the River Avon and it was moved to a new site closer to the town’s railway station.

However the new racecourse became an army training camp in 1939 and never reopened. The Land O’Plums chase was confined to history until its revival at Worcester Racecourse in 2010.

• The meetings at the new racecourse attracted some of the best jockeys of the 1930s including seven times champion jockey Gerry Wilson.

• In 1937, a teenage American jockey called Bruce Hobbs burst onto the British scene with three winners at Pershore. The following year, only three weeks after his 17th birthday, he went on to become the youngest winner of the Grand National, riding the 40/1 shot Battleship.

• Keith Piggott, Lester Piggott's father also raced there, as did Jack Anthony who won the Grand National three times, went on to become a trainer and won Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1929 and 1930.