Racecourse cleaning: LeTrot company on a roll
LeTrot organizes horse races at the Paris-Vincennes, Enghien, Caen and Cabourg racecourses. In autumn 2024, it contacted Onet for its experience in event-related waste management, with specific requirements linked to the particular context of the Paris-Vincennes racecourse. In particular, the company wanted to help the racecourse meet its challenges in terms of visitor numbers and development. Jean-François Laverdure, Director of Onet Cleaning and Associated Services Evénementiel Paris, explains.
A place steeped in history
The Paris-Vincennes racecourse, inaugurated in 1863, boasts the largest racecourse in Europe. Every year, it hosts more than 150 horse meetings, including its winter meeting and night races. The quality of its asphalt track, the excellent lighting of one of the 2 tracks for night races, and the facilities for trotters, horses (150 boxes) and spectators (35,000) have earned it the nickname of the temple of trotting.
In 2025, Paris City Hall will renew its 50-year concession with the racing company that organizes the American Grand Prix.
Optimizing the number of days the racecourse is occupied
It was against this backdrop that the LeTrot-Onet meeting was organized. The Paris-Vincennes racecourse is looking for a cleaning company specializing in events, able to support it in its drive to improve the customer experience and offer innovative solutions in both cleaning and waste management. The initial contract for this period will enable both parties to completely review the specifications and adapt the services in order to move upmarket, with the aim for our customer to further increase the number of visitors, and not just during the horse races.
For LeTrot, racing is an exceptional sporting spectacle, but the racecourse must also be a genuine events venue. Vast, flexible and with a large capacity, the racecourse has many assets for hosting other events that contribute to making the site and its infrastructures more profitable. The racecourse is already used for gastronomic shows, entertainment days such as "Dimanche en folie" or "soirées tropicales", and concerts such as "Yardland" in July. A dedicated " LeTrot Entreprises" team is tasked with attracting and hosting new events and optimizing the number of days the racecourse is occupied. This is a prerequisite for the economic sustainability of the venue, which is now likely to cost LeTrot more.
An approach to cleanliness and waste management based on the characteristics of the racecourse
To support this ambition, Onet Cleaning and Associated Services Evénementiel Paris proposed an innovative approach to LeTrot.
The racecourse hall is over 200 m long and is used by the public. Its large surface area therefore lends itself well to the implementation of a robotized washing system. We therefore recommended the use of an autonomous cobot to take care of the washing, freeing up our agents to devote themselves to other tasks. This contributes to the upmarket nature of our service.
One of the famous racetracks at Paris-Vincennes, reserved for trotters, has a black clinker surface. A by-product of coal combustion, clinker protects horses from injury, while its hardness makes for very fast turf tracks.
The downside is that horses, jockeys-drivers and all track personnel come home covered in clinker at the end of the race. Checkroom and hall floors are covered in this fine black residue, which sinks into tiles and parquet. This produces a "clogging" effect on surfaces that conveys an image unsuited to places welcoming VIP visitors. Solutions have been put in place to minimize this visual impact, notably with eco-labelled products.
The site audit also revealed that the parquet floors were not well protected. The recommendation was to clean them thoroughly and apply a specific product to preserve them and give them a more attractive appearance, in line with the quest for an optimal customer experience.
Particular attention has also been paid to waste management, with the installation of sorting garbage cans and specific containers. The aim is to help the racecourse achieve Equures certification, a quality approach to environmental protection and animal welfare specifically developed for equine facilities. A study is being carried out in this field to set up a better quality sorting system with complementary flows such as bio-waste, for example.
A specific organization for greater efficiency
Like many event venues, the Paris-Vincennes racecourse has an irregular pattern of activity. Although the racecourse hosts an increasing number of non-racing events, it closes for three weeks in March and the summer, and is at its busiest from October to the end of February, during the winter meeting.
The racecourse hall is over 200 m long and is used by the public. Its large surface area therefore lends itself well to the implementation of a robotized washing system. We therefore recommended the use of an autonomous cobot to take care of the washing, freeing up our agents to devote themselves to other tasks. This contributes to the upmarket nature of our service.
zone. This configuration makes the service even more reliable. The effect was felt very quickly, as there were no major complaints.
Reassuring expertise
By choosing Onet Cleaning and Associated Services, LeTrot has secured the services of teams experienced in cleaning and waste management in the events sector. This ensures that the company benefits from sound advice and real support. Jean-François Laverdure, Director of Onet Cleaning and Associated Services Evénementiel Paris, embodies this expertise in the capital. An experienced man, he has developed his know-how over several decades in the field of cleaning and waste management for events. These include exhibition halls, trade shows, leisure parks, sporting events such as the Roland-Garros tournament and, most recently, the management of activities at eight Parisian venues for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
To capitalize on its expertise and structure its development in this sector, Onet set up an Events Department a few years ago, headed by Quentin Coquet-Reinier.
Cleanliness and waste management at the Paris-Vincennes racecourse are in good hands! There's no doubt that Onet's teams will make an excellent contribution to achieving LeTrot's development objectives.
About LeTrot
The Société d'Encouragement à l'Elevage du Cheval Français (SECF), better known as LeTrot, is a 1901 association founded in Caen in 1864. Under the administration of a 52-member volunteer committee and a board of directors, LeTrot is the parent company of the trotting racing industry in France. Its primary mission is to organize and promote the development of trotting races in France, and to protect the specificity of the "Trotteurs Français" horse breed. LeTrot directly manages five main sites: Paris-Vincennes, Enghien, Caen, Cabourg, as well as the Grosbois international training center in the Val-de-Marne.
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