Eight things you might not know about the StrayRipon Races set for first meeting of season tomorrowRipon Races is under starter’s orders for its first fixture of the new season tomorrow.
Yorkshire’s garden racecourse, as the venue is known, will be hoping for a smooth year after two years of covid restrictions severely curtailed activities.
Gates open at 11am for the first of 17 days racing this year.
Jonathan Mullin, hoping for an uninterrupted season at Ripon Races
Tomorrow’s Easter family day’s first race at 1pm will feature new sponsor Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate.
Jonathan Mullin, operations and marketing manager at the Boroughbridge Road racecourse, told the Stray Ferret:
“After two years of covid restrictions, we are looking forward to what we hope will be an uninterrupted season and plenty of racegoers through the gates.
“At a time when there is a squeeze on family budgets, we are offering reduced price entry to the paddock and club enclosures at all of our evening meetings The reduction will be 23% and 12% respectively.”
William Hill is maintaining its long-term sponsorship at Ripon.
This season’s running of the valuable William Hill Great St Wilfrid Handicap, on Saturday August 13, has added significance, with 2022 marking the 1,350th anniversary of Ripon’s patron saint founding the city’s cathedral.
New this season is a Stables Championship run in partnership with organic plant-based grooming products manufacturer, Goodbye Flys.
The stable staff of the yard that accrues the highest points total across the 2022 season will be crowned champions and receive a £5,000 cash prize, with £2,000 going to the runners-up and £1,000 to the third placed team.
Titanium Racing Club and Grantley Hall Hotel are both returning race sponsors and NE-Bet is continuing its sponsorship of the owners and trainers enclosure.
The covid vaccination programme
Ripon Races has been a key site in the covid vaccination programme.
Mr Mullin said:
“The racecourse management and course staff were proud to support the NHS and many volunteers involved in setting up and operating the covid vaccination centre here.
“Thousands of people received their jabs and boosters in the Wakeman Bar and we will continue to help the NHS when our facilities are required for the vaccination programme.”
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Ripon races ready for biggest crowd of the season today
Ripon holds its most valuable race day of the season this afternoon, with the William Hill Great St Wilfrid Handicap taking centre stage.
The six furlong sprint, with total prize money of £75,000, has attracted a highly-competitive field of 20 runners.
Jonathan Mullin, marketing manager for Ripon Races, told the Stray Ferret:
“There’s £150,000 in prize money on offer across the card, which also includes the Great St Wilfrid Silver Trophy and the Hornblower Conditions Stakes – races also sponsored by William Hill.
He added:
“They have been sponsoring the St Wilfrid for 28 years and that gives us the added prize money to attract the entry of some of the best sprinters from the UK’s top stables.”
Advance sales bode well for a good-sized crowd.
Mr Mullin pointed out:
“Tickets for the club, paddock and course enclosures have gone well.”
Last year, with a covid lockdown in place, the feature race and all others on the card were run in front of empty stands.
With the easing of social distancing restrictions, racegoers have been steadily returning to Yorkshire’s ‘garden racecourse.’
The maximum attendance was 4,000 for Ripon’s meetings from late May, but since 19 July larger numbers have been able to attend.
In 2020 the big race was won by Staxton, trained by Tim Easterby and ridden by Duran Fentiman.
The shrewd North Yorkshire trainer, who is having a highly-successful season, has won the St Wilfrid on three occasions.
This year he has six runners, with Music Society, Lampang, Boardman, Golden Apollo and Manigordo, lining up alongside Staxton, in a bid to make it a fourth win for the Great Habton stable.
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As well as the action on the course, attendees will be entertained by the Ripon City Band.
Racing fans who are unable to attend, will be able to watch the Great St Wilfrid and Silver Trophy races on ITV.
Ripon’s racing history
Meetings have been held at the Boroughbridge Road racecourse since August 1900 and the city has a rich horseracing heritage.
The first recorded races were held on nearby Bondgate Green in 1664 and over the next 236 years other venues hosted meetings.
In 1723, history was made when the first-ever race exclusively for lady riders was held in Ripon.
Final race of season at Ripon Racecourse
For racegoers, the 2020 season at Ripon has been a non-starter, with the action on course staged behind closed doors.
Today the lockdown season comes to a close with a seven-race card.
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down horseracing across the UK in March – a month before the course was due to hold its first meeting of the season.
When a curtailed calendar finally got underway on the evening of 20 June it, and all subsequent meetings, had to be held without racegoers present.
Before the coronavirus crisis dealt the horseracing industry a giant blow, Ripon’s garden course, in its 120th year at the Boroughbridge Road venue, was looking forward to a 17-meeting season.
Empty racegoer car parks tell their own story
In a normal year, the track attracts thousands of people through its gates – both local and from further afield – with the highlight of its calendar being the Great St Wilfrid Handicap in August.
As the season concludes with the 17.40 Lloyd Land Rover Ripon Apprentice Handicap, the public’s return to sporting events remains delayed, following announcements by the government.
The British Horseracing Authority (BHA), in a statement earlier this week, said that racecourses across the UK are facing a loss in revenue of between £250 million and £300 million this year, adding:
“Our industry is now facing a severe threat. We are the second most attended spectator sport in the country. Without the millions of people who normally enjoy a day at the races, many people’s jobs are at serious risk, as are the businesses they work in.
“We have kept the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments updated on the financial impact of COVID and the effects on the rural economies in which so many of our racing staff live and work.”
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Before the first behind-closed-doors meeting in June, clerk of the course and managing director of Ripon Racecourse Company, James Hutchinson told the Stray Ferret:
“There’s no point in looking back at what didn’t happen, we’d rather look forward and hope that it won’t be long before we can open our gates to racegoers once more.”
With the next season seven months away, all involved with running the course, are hoping the roar of the Ripon crowd will be heard yet again in 2021.
Ripon races ready to resume behind closed doorsHorseracing at Ripon resumes on June 20th, albeit behind closed doors and with strict social distancing measures in place.
For James Hutchinson, who is clerk of the course and managing director of Ripon Racecourse Company, it has been a long wait since the autumn, when the last meeting was staged at Yorkshire’s ‘garden racecourse’.
This season’s April and May meetings were wiped out by Covid-19, but James (pictured below, left at a pre-coronavius meeting) remains philosophical.
He told The Stray Ferret:
“There’s no point in looking back at what didn’t happen, we’d rather look forward and hope that it won’t be long before we can open our gates to racegoers once more.”
Before then, in addition to the evening meeting on Saturday 20th June, there will be meetings on 8th and 24th July and the 6th, 16th and 31st August – all behind closed doors.
On each date, there will be an eight-race card with a maximum of 12 runners per race, ensuring that the number of stable staff, jockeys and trainers present will be in manageable numbers, alongside the course’s own employees, stewards, clerk of the scales, starter, vets and ambulance crews required to attend.
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Social distancing and hygiene measures will be in force across the course, in the changing room and the parade ring and, like the first meeting since lockdown staged at Newcastle, jockeys will wear face masks before, during and after each race.
While punters will be unable to watch the action on course, the races will be live on Sky Sports Racing Channel and with bookmakers due to reopen from 15th June, those who want a bet will be able to do so and watch the racing action beamed into the betting shops.
James, pointed out:
“We are pleased to be back racing again, though it will be strange not to have racegoers present. We simply hope to complete the fixtures through to the end of August as safely as possible for all involve and take it from there, but to paraphrase the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, ‘we’ll be back!'”