Big plans for 2024 at York Racecourse
As you head east on the A64 towards the delights of Malton, Scarborough and Whitby there’s a brief tantalising glimpse of the straight track at York, the grandstand there in the distance. In your mind you see the likes of Dayjur, Battaash, Oasis Dream and Highfield Princess thundering down there.
And then there's the roadside sign. Throughout the summer months it brings details of the next big meeting, the next chance to enjoy the delights of one of the great racecourses in the country. But as 2/1 favourite Star Ahoy led home the field in the Coral 'Committed To Safer Gambling' Finale Handicap, the curtain came down on the 2023 campaign.
For now the promotion on the board will change – to Christmas party opportunities and the seemingly distant prospect of the 2024 Dante Festival.
There’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before then – and a lot of work to do at the course too. Within 36 hours of the final race of 2023 the gates swing open to welcome in the team tasked with providing the next phase in the ongoing development of the facilities on offer.
This time it's the south end of the track that’s getting the revamp. The area where the Theakston Bar welcomed Grandstand and Paddock racegoers for years, where generations saw the likes of Frankel and Sea The Stars light up the track.
When they flock back next summer it will be to a state-of the-art development.
"We’re really excited by this project. We’ve done the northern end development which we finished in 2016, we then did the picnic enclosure, the Clocktower in 2018, and this is the next logical step," William Derby, chief executive and clerk of the course said at the track's final fixture.
"It’s south of the Knavesmire Stand where the facilities sort of dropped off in terms of quality previously. It will really smarten up that area and provide a new experience for grandstand and paddock customers.
"New catering, toilets and betting facilities will be available under a beautiful canopy which will keep people dry but we’ve designed it so the lawn will continue to grow underneath to keep that summer feel. It will really smarten up that area.
"And it’s not about increasing our attendance capacity. That will remain the same. There's no hospitality in it, it’s just for the race fan to give them a better experience when they come to York."
Work starts on Monday
And the hard work starts now.
Derby added: “We got planning permission on Tuesday and the wagons literally roll in on Monday and the builders move in. We will deliver it by the big days next summer. It probably won’t all be finished by the time we start racing at the Dante Festival, it depends on winter conditions as a lot of it is in the ground, but we are hopeful by John Smith’s Cup Day it will ostensibly be done. It’s very exciting."
Exciting is a word that sums up the action on the track in 2023 too – a campaign that started with a bang on the very first day.
"It’s just been a magical season really. Since the Tattersalls Musidora where Soul Sister blitzed home under Frankie Dettori to start his amazing summer with us,” Derby admitted.
“She went on to become the eighth filly to win our race and go on and win the Oaks at Epsom and of course we had Highfield Princess finishing second to Azure Blue in the 1895 Duke Of York Stakes also on that opening day.
“The racing stories through the year have been fantastic. Continuous finished third in the Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Dante Stakes and went on to win the Sky Bet Great Voltigeur and Betfred St Leger. We’ve had some great racing on the track from the moment our gates opened.
“Our flagship fixture is the Sky Bet Ebor Festival and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the big races there.
“Mostahdaf, the world’s highest rated racehorse outside Equinox in Japan, won the Juddmonte International, there was an amazing performance from Warm Heart for Aidan O’Brien in the Pertemps Network Yorkshire Oaks and Live In The Dream’s Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes win, well that was probably the story of the year.
“Jockey Sean Kirrane is locally based, Adam West a somewhat unheralded trainer and the horse has amazing owners in Steve and Jolene De’Lemos. That was a truly great story before Sky Bet Ebor day which was all about one person – Frankie.
"He won the City Of York and the Ebor itself, signing off an amazing festival and his career at the Knavesmire – or at least we think!"
City Of York set for elevation in status
Dettori told Lee Mottershead in the Racing Post this week that his Super Saturday at York was the moment he knew he had to carry on in the saddle beyond this autumn. He might also have helped forever change one of those big-races he won.
The racecourse have long held the ambition to make the Sky Bet City Of York a Group One contest. It needed time, investment and good winners. Now the case has been made.
“The City Of York, a race we have invested alongside sponsors Sky Bet so much effort into putting prize-money up to £500,000 and we needed a great race for it this year. We couldn’t have scripted the ending better with Kinross leading home a first four that gave us that magical Group One parameter we needed to achieve,” Derby said.
“We then had Frankie parading in front of the stands believing he’d ridden his last winner at the track. It couldn’t get any better – then half-an-hour later there he is again riding an amazing race on Absurde to win the Sky Bet Ebor.
“We had a big crowd, amazing atmosphere, the flying dismount, and what a way to sign off your career at York. It was a magical day.”
So what now for the seven furlong showpiece?
“They said to us when we started this journey four or five years ago that what you need to do is have Group One prize-money and Group One ratings for the principals. By that they mean you have to have a three-year average rating of Group One horses in your winner and those placed. But to do that when you’re a Group Two is very hard.
“The last year you’re going for it has to be a Group One rating too and I’m sure when they said that to us way back when they thought ‘well, they’ll never get that’ but magically, amazingly, and through hard work, determination and investment, we have achieved those parameters.
“We've done everything asked of us. We have the support of the British Flat Pattern Committee to be a nominated Group One from Britain. The last hurdle if you like is for it to go the European Pattern Committee in January where it has to be endorsed by them.
“We are sending it with our very best wishes and a bow on the top and hoping against hope it will be upgraded. We think it deserves to be, there's no other European Group One for three-year-olds and above over seven furlongs, other than the Foret in October. We think those sorts of horses deserve the opportunity and we are very hopeful we can achieve that."
And if the green light is given Derby acknowledges there will be a debt of gratitude to the horse that won in 2023.
“Kinross has been successful in it the last two years and it’s so fitting that we are making the application after his latest victory. He’s an amazing horse and going globetrotting this autumn. I doubt he will be back next year to see it as a Group One but he’s been a great help,” he said.
“This year’s form has been franked at Doncaster and ParisLongchamp since and it’s a great race. I know I’m biased but I do think it deserves to be a Group One and wouldn’t it be great to have a Group One race on every day of the Ebor Festival?"
Challenges off the track in 2023
It’s been a positive year elsewhere.
“It’s been great on the track. The groundstaff have done an amazing job with the racing surface. They’ve been nominated for an all-industries groundstaff award for their performances so I’m really proud of them and Zac Rafferty, our Head Gardener, won a RHS Yorkshire In Bloom Gold Award which is wonderful.
“That’s what we’re all about at York Racecourse. Record prize-money at £10.75million rewarded by amazing field sizes, we’ll have a record number of runners in 2023 and probably the highest average field size of any racecourse in the UK and that tremendous action on the track, well It felt very special.”
But it was all achieved against tough economic headwinds. For all the success on the track, it’s been hard work off it.
“It has been tough. The team here have worked incredibly hard and we have had great support from racegoers. We are up on attendance from 2022 which we’re really pleased about, and I would have bit your hand off had you told me that would be the case at the beginning of the year,” Derby said.
“We’ve had train strikes on two of our big summer Saturdays which didn’t help because we are a train connected city and so many people enjoying travelling here that way.
“Obviously we’ve been battling the economic headwinds too and have had a couple of rainy days which never help so there you are but I’m not making excuses. We’re delighted to be a nose ahead of 2022 and while we’re not back up to the levels we saw pre-Covid, we hope we’re building momentum and the people who came here had a great time and will be back again.
“We’ve invested in the facilities for racegoers as well as horsemen and horses so we’re going into our winter months with a huge sense of pride in the season we’ve delivered and looking forward to the future.”
Key challenges the sport faces
Looking forward to it, yes, but acutely aware of the challenges racing still faces.
“There are challenges and threats to the sport. Affordability checks is one. A huge amount of the sport’s income comes from betting, we’re very proud of that link and conscious of it in all that we do,” he added.
“This is having an impact on our business and as all the profit we make gets reinvested into the sport, it will have an effect on our ability to do things in the future, just as everyone will be feeling the effects.
“That is a challenge, and we need to continue as a sport to focus on caring for our horses and just as importantly demonstrating how we care for our horses. That is a huge area and something we take very seriously here.
“We’re very proud of our associations with New Beginnings and Racing Welfare and are acutely aware of the need to promote the great work that goes on in terms of horse welfare throughout the industry.”
York will stage one less fixture in 2024. That must be frustrating even if Derby and his team share the BHA's vision for the future.
“We would prefer to have not lost a fixture but understand the arguments at industry level that there’s perhaps too much racing and not enough of a horse population to sustain the programme,” he said.
“We would say with our prize money and average field size we justified having an 18-raceday programme, our track can take it, but we’re part of a big industry, a big sport, and we accept that.
“We’ll be looking to see in the future whether we can expand going forwards, but we accept our fate for now.
“We are big believers in 'premierisation' in terms of the sport shining a light on it’s better racing whether that be at York or elsewhere. We think we should showcase the best of what we have – and that’s not to say racing at a lower grade doesn’t have a huge place too.
“It does, on occasions we stage races that aren’t at the pinnacle of the sport, but it’s all about having a hierarchy, we hope it’s successful and we will support it moving forward."
So as Derby watches the final racegoers disappear on a beautiful early autumn evening and prepares to welcome the construction team in their place, he adds: “I’m really looking forward to the racing action in 2024. It has a lot to live up to but I’m a glass half full – not glass half empty – type and I can’t wait to find out what happens.”
If recent history is anything to go by, it will be spectacular.
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