At the height of the summer holiday season, the sole surviving Flat meeting over the past two afternoons was yesterday's all-weather card at Great Leighs. Three months after its troubled birth, the newest racecourse is serving an unforeseeable purpose.

While the industry recovered from the savage loss of the Ebor meeting, and awaited the cross-eyed challenge of following rescheduled races strung across the country, it was business as usual at the work in progress that was once the Essex County Showground.

It opened in late May to a chorus of disapproval over lamentably inadequate spectator amenities. One leading trainer even called it “an embarrassment to the industry”. Though stung by the vitriol, John Holmes, whose vision and money created the venue, simply added it to his list of costly setbacks and carried on regardless.

Great Leighs staged its fourteenth meeting yesterday and looked a deal better than on my last visit. The car parks are now on tarmacadam. Grass and flower beds have replaced mud around the horsewalk. There are snacks and draught beer in the previously barren grandstand and viewing has improved with the extension of the front terrace and the erection of what Holmes claims to be the largest mobile screen in the land.

Much remains to be done, and Holmes knows it, but he is confident that initial poor impressions are being corrected. “It's still not nearly what I want but I cringe when I think what it was like back in May. I wonder how I had the guts to open at all but we simply had to get up and running. Since that difficult day, we've had no more than ten complaints.”

William Haggas trained the first winner yesterday and then assessed the venue in his guise as president of the National Trainers' Federation. “The track has been good from day one but they had teething problems in the public areas and maybe ran short of money,” he said. “They've done a lot since then and they're keen to create a feelgood factor. I'm sure it will be a success.”

Holmes is anxious not to make big predictions, nor to be tied to timelines for ongoing projects such as the completion of the top floor of the centre-course stand, let alone the construction of the permanent £30 million stand on the outside of the track. “I don't want to put myself under any more silly pressure,” he explained.

For all that, the coming weeks are pivotal to his hopes. A new champagne bar and carvery should be open when a three-day fixture starts next Tuesday. On September 4, the champagne-flute floodlights will be in use for the first time. Then, on September 27, Holmes dips his feet in the top-end market he aims to conquer by staging a Saturday night meeting worth £215,000 and unambiguously framed as a trial for the Breeders' Cup.

“It's pretty ambitious and, as things stand, I'm picking up the tab. But we are getting it shown on the American TV networks and that may attract sponsors. The feedback from top trainers has been positive.” If the crowds turn up, too, Holmes may finally know for sure he is on to something good.