Sky Bet Ebor Festival: William Derby interview

Two weeks and counting to the final major summer jamboree of the Flat season.

William Derby, York chief executive and clerk of the course, leads the team tasked with putting on the Sky Bet Ebor Festival. We’re talking in Dublin Airport after a quick trip to talk to four leading trainers targeting some of the fantastic prize-money on offer across the four days.

Derby is fully engaged with everything, the transport plans for the handlers, thoughts on previous visits, suggestions for tweaks. And he is engaged with his phone too – the emails, messages, tasks to do once we touch down in Manchester in about an hour’s time.

It’s busy – but a schedule he thrives on.

“We’re really looking forward to our flagship meeting. It’s always the highlight of our season and it’s that time when those superstar horses come to the Knavesmire,” he enthused.

“It’s a really busy time, an exciting time and a time we look forward to every year.”

Racecourses have found it a struggle post-pandemic to bring people back through the doors at the same levels they were doing prior to lockdown. But there are encouraging signs in the summer of 2023 for York.

“I think we have momentum,” Derby said. “We’ve had some amazing racing action on the track and there have been some great horses whether that be Azure Blue and Highfield Princess on the opening day of the season in the Duke Of York or Soul Sister winning the Tattersalls Musidora and going on to land the Betfred Oaks. It’s been a really rewarding season – we had the amazing Macmillan Charity Day where we reached the £10million raised figure over the last 52 years, which is a huge charitable effort by the local and racing community and something we are very proud tom host and contribute to.

“And we come into the Sky Ebor Festival off the back of a Music Showcase Weekend where on the Sky Bet York Stakes day, we welcomed our highest attendance since 2018. I think the season so far gives the team real momentum and real excitement too at the prospect of the world’s second-best racehorse Mostahdaf, the joint highest rated one outside Japan, taking on the most progressive and exciting four-time Group One winner Paddington in our flagship £1million Juddmonte International.

“That’s what we’re all about, getting those great horses to clash at our flagship meeting.”

So, do big name horses help put bums on seats?

“I hope and think they do. We did see that to a dramatic effect with Frankel over a decade ago. I think it does help and helps with ITV viewers, people tuning into the sport and it definitely helps with our betting engagement. I also think it’s something the racecourse, the city and the county of Yorkshire takes a great pride in.

“Here we are a northern track attracting these star horses and we heard this week from Aidan and Joseph O’Brien, Paddy Twomey and Willie Mullins, these are great trainers in anyone’s book, and they were talking with great affection and showing great support to York Racecourse and that fills us with enormous pride.”

The bumper crowd for the July Saturday felt significant. It was an attendance figure that surpassed the ones registered in the final summer before the pandemic. Derby hopes it’s sign of things to come.

“I think it was great to get back to the big, buzzy atmosphere. It will be different at the Ebor Festival, there’s a different crowd dynamic but that’s what we do, hopefully York appeals to different customer segments on different days and the Ebor crowd really know their racing, appreciate the good horses. There’s a real buzz around the parade ring to see the runners beforehand, Aidan said in his experience there was nowhere else like it with that crackle you get around the parade ring at York.

“So, it was nice to post that attendance figure and while we won’t repeat it at the Sky Bet Ebor, we hope people will come for some great racing and a great atmosphere.”

The Ebor is the final big show of the summer and Derby feels they’re in a wonderful spot on the calendar following on the hooves of Royal Ascot at the Qatar Goodwood Festival.

“We love that Flat season rhythm where you have the wonderful meetings building up to York, unlike the jumps which is obviously so dominated by Cheltenham, rightly so because it’s such a wonderful festival, but it’s almost to the exclusion of all others before it then there’s Aintree which is a different beast afterwards.

“With the Flat we love the stories that we have coming into York, the horses that have done well at Royal Ascot taking on those that have done well at Goodwood etc. We work very closely with those other great festivals and have great relationships with and affinity to them, but we love our position in the calendar where all the stories are emerging, and the crossroads come.

“After us the horses go various routes whether it be QIPCO British Champions Day, the Arc or further afield to the Breeders’ Cup, Australia, Japan or Hong Kong. We love to play our part and it makes the meeting a fascinating one for a worldwide audience.”

America, Australia and Japan battle it out for York stars

Tie-ups with the major international meetings are now in place, incentives for the York winners to head to those huge overseas prizes, it’s rightly something the racecourse are very proud of.

“It’s a real tribute to the Ebor Festival and the quality of the race programme. We are so proud of those relationships, the personal ones, the race planning ones, I’m a big admirer of the global sport, the big days there are and how the various jurisdictions showcase the best of horse racing.

“I love seeing how they put on the show and those links mean the winner of the Sky Bet Ebor is guaranteed their berth in the Lexus Melbourne Cup and connections don’t have to worry about going all the way around the world only to find out they miss out on the final field.

“The winner of the Juddmonte International has the option to go to the Breeders’ Cup, Cox Plate or Japan Cup and there are big incentives associated with that. Those relationships are hard won and are only won because people hold our horses, our races, our people in such high esteem and seeing them run well at York makes them want to see them run on their own racecourses.”

Derby has been to Australia to see how organisers promote and execute the Melbourne Cup.

“You can’t fail but to be impressed by the scale of the Spring Carnival at Flemington. Over four days with gaps in between race days – it really engages the whole city. We’re working hard with Sky Bet to try and do that with the whole of Yorkshire and our region with our own Festival.

“We have the Ebor Community Sweepstake whereby charities from across the county and apply to be attached to a horse in the Ebor and one charity will win £20,000 and no one will go away with less than £1000.

“That’s something we’re really proud of. Our equine ambassador Goldream visited a hospice this week as part of our efforts to reach our local community and that sense of community is something they do really well in Australia.

“But in terms of action on the racecourse I don’t think we have anything to be intimidated by and I think the show and atmosphere at York compares very well with any racing event anywhere around the world.”

World Pool helps boost prize-money

There are other benefits to the global approach too – financial ones.

“World Pool has been a really exciting development both for punters who are betting into huge pools and have access to exotic bets, and the racecourses,” Derby said.

“It’s an important revenue source for the first three days of our Festival and all of that money has been reinvested into prize-money. We have record levels this year with over £6million on offer which is up on 2022, 2021 and more importantly 2019 which was pre-pandemic.

“That’s aimed at attracting the best racehorses to run at York and rewarding the participants who do come here. No race is worth less than £100,000. World Pool helps us do that and we’re very proud to work with the Hong Kong Jockey Club and World Pool to provide the best product for our customers.”

Many see York as a model for other venues and racecourse groups to follow with their prize-money, facilities for staff, owners, racegoers and affordable food and drink in all enclosures. But the team at the Knavesmire have no intention of standing still. Not even for a moment.

“There’s a huge pressure to keep improving, keep innovating and changing the offer. We can’t build a new grandstand every year but there have been significant capital developments over the last two decades and the York Race Committee has shown great vision to make – and hopefully keep – York as one of the great racecourses of the world,” Derby said.

“But there’s a real innovative spirit within the team, a restlessness I’d call it, to keep improving, make things better for racegoers, participants and viewers on television. We work really hard with all of our partners to try and keep pushing forward and try to make sure this year was better than last year and then the next year better still.

“We’re very excited about the future, very proud of what British racing has to offer. Sure, we have problems and challenges as every sport and business has but at the core essence, we have wonderful events that people come to enjoy and see the best horses race.

“The Mostahdaf v Paddington clash in the Juddmonte International or Souls Sister v Savethelastdance in the Pertemps Yorkshire Oaks or Highfield Princess v Bradsell in the Coolmore Nunthorpe this year is hugely exciting and something to be very proud of.”

Support for premierisation plan

Change is coming to the sport with the BHA announcing premierisation plans meaning changes to the fixture list and when racecourses will stage meetings.

“The overall concept of really celebrating, showcasing and promoting the best of the sport is absolutely something we’d endorse,” Derby said. “This is not likely to be a “big bang moment” as I understand it, there are many, very committed people working on the project and not all the plans have emerged yet.

“But there will be more of a gradual iteration on how we differentiate certain aspects of our sport; Meetings that have a place based in their local community and have excellent racing on that level and others which showcase the best of horse racing.

“There’s something to be proud about with both of those and for me the key for our sport is working out how we tell those stories better and present them to the customer better and that’s one thing I do hope premierisation will do and help people focus on whether this is a very important day for the sport or a community race day that you can go to, attend to, bet on and be part of but is perhaps not national sport. You see that across other areas like football, rugby and cricket.”

So is Derby content with the York fixture list moving forward?

“We’re delighted to have our festivals, the Ebor and the Dante, they are two flagships and we’re very proud of those. We have some very successful summer Saturdays which really come alive as race days and we have our very popular Family Sunday in September where we really try to welcome the next generation of racegoers,” he said.

“We will always look to see if we can continue to evolve and improve or fixture list over the years ahead as long as it works with our racing surface and the racing calendar.”

The racing surface is part of Derby’s remit, as well as driving the business side forward. It’s a unique position at a top British racecourse.

“For York it’s always been the case that the person heading up the business side of the racecourse is also heading up the racing side and it works for York and is what the York Race Committee has wanted to do.

“It hopefully dovetails with my skillset of being passionate about racing and the horses but also being a chartered accountant with business qualifications, so I love the fact my job includes both sides of that. I am hugely supported by great teams throughout the business. That’s how York works.”

Good to firm ground the aim for Ebor Festival

Watering has been one of the big talking points of the current flat campaign, many questioning why and when the taps are turned on.

“In terms of watering we’re aiming to provide the best racing surface we can which will attract the top horses and give them the opportunity to show their best at York,” Derby said.

“We have invested heavily in both drainage and irrigation systems allowing Racing Manager Anthea Leigh and Head Groundsman Adrian Kay to cope with whatever the weather throws at us.

“In terms of this meeting in an ideal world we would like to be racing on kind, fast summer good to firm ground. That’s what we’d aim for if we were in control of the weather but it’s not always the case.

“We’d water if we thought we were drying out towards to firm ground, we’d water to make sure the surface isn’t slippy, you have to be careful you don’t let it bake out and then get a shower of rain as any track may then become a greasy surface.

“We do have to make sure we have a healthy grass plant. You need to water, feed and nurture it. Yes, put it under a bit of stress as it sends the roots down and make a healthy plant and that’s what we’re trying to create and sometimes you need to water, especially in the immediate aftermath of a meeting to stimulate germination and aid recovery.

“We’re talking two weeks before the Ebor Festival and we haven’t irrigated York Racecourse since early June. We haven’t had to, we had a very wet July, the ground is currently in the process of drying.

“It is a difficult balance, you’re dealing with nature and uncertain forecasts and we’re well aware some people think watering is wrong, but we have to look after the horses, make sure they have grip and can perform at the highest level. We know how to prepare our racing surface and Adrain and Anthea have a tremendous track record of delivering on that front.

“We have seven races each day, we haven’t increased our number of races, is a 28-race programme and have spent significant sums to widen the track where we needed so we’re able to move the rail position each day to provide fresh ground around the bends.

“That is part of the ongoing investment on our racing surface, something like £1million a year to improve it. We did a big job to improve the canter down last winter to take horses off the racing surface as they go to the start. Our capacity to hold those 28 races is there but you are dealing with weather and if it throws it down all week it can make it challenging but you’re dealing with nature, the climate, a living organism in terms of the surface.”

The biggest week in York's calendar

Watching Derby during Ebor week is an exhausting process in itself. He’s everywhere, in the pre-parade ring, winners’ enclosure, helping with buckets of water for the horses, visiting guests in the hospitality boxes, speaking to racegoers in the stands and on the walkways.

“I’m able to do that because I have a great team who look after the various areas and my role really is to support them and make sure they have all they need to do their job,” he said.

“I really enjoy the Ebor Festival, it’s what we get out of bed for in January really. What I love is seeing those great horses and those great showdowns and that’s why we do the job we do. I’m really looking forward to the four days and hope everyone in the industry and everyone who follows the sport are too. I’m in the privileged position of having a front row seat for the action and seeing all these great horses, and now some of their progeny, in action. Those racing stories and bloodlines continue and that’s wonderful.”

And so is the Sky Bet Ebor Festival, a special and cherished meeting for so many and thriving in the modern era thanks to ambitious team who continue to drive it forward.

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