Clash of titans sets the stage for York’s richest Ebor week
York’s Ebor meeting begins today with a clash that may come to define it. The encounter, their third of the season, is between the season’s preeminent three-year-old colts over a mile, Barney Roy and Churchill in the 10-furlong £1 million Juddmonte International.
During its 45-year history the race has been graced by some of the greatest horses and provided some of the biggest surprises. It is a crackerjack way to begin the fiveday fixture but the compelling action does not stop there.
York, our most successful independent racecourse, has really got its act together these past few years and although the Dante meeting, with its Classic trials, may be favoured by some purists, it is the Ebor meeting which is favoured by the punter and people of York. The county’s three Ridings will flock to the Knavesmire in their thousands this week.
Although the meeting might originally have been staged for major local landowners who had travelled to their moors for the start of the grouse season in August, the racecourse is no plaything now, it is big business.
On the back of the track’s most successful financial year, no race this week will be worth less than £70,000 a remarkable amount when you consider Goodwood, even with Qatari backing, has a lowest prize of £25,000.
York’s success is partly due to being run by a race committee of devoted local racing enthusiasts, chaired by Lord Grimthorpe, who act as an unpaid board. They put in the hours but are motivated by nothing more than the love of the sport. All profits are ploughed back into prize money and improving the track’s facilities.
The new weighing room, built with such empathy for the racecourse’s look, has bedded in as if it has been there for decades while work on the next phase of improvements, a £5m upgrade of facilities in the middle of the course, begins as soon as the last meeting of the season has been run on Sept 10.
Planning permission, which had to overcome a triple whammy of constraints – greenbelt, flood plain and the clock tower’s Listed restrictions – took some getting but those who pay £5 for the enclosure should notice a big difference on Dante day next year.
“The tower’s Newey clock, made by the famous local family, would have the specialist from Antiques Roadshow purring and York’s Clock Preservation Society is helping with its restoration,” explained chief executive William Derby, who is overseeing his 15th Ebor meeting.
The meeting may not boast a Classic but few would argue with the fact that it is the north’s best fixture in terms of quality. It has three Group One races, the International, tomorrow’s Yorkshire Oaks in which this year Enable, the best middle-distance horse in Europe runs, and a mouth-watering Nunthorpe on Friday where the turbo-powered Lady Aurelia meets rising sprint star Battaash.
Saturday’s highlight is the Ebor, at £285,000, the richest handicap in Europe. These are backed up by a strong juvenile programme including the Lowther, Acomb and Gimcrack Stakes as the two-yearolds seek to establish a pecking order. In short there is something for everyone.