Irish Champions Festival clash does not faze Doncaster after St Leger crowd boost

A bigger crowd for the St Leger has helped ease concerns that the frequent clash with the Irish Champions Festival is not best for racing.

Unlike last year, the Saturday and Sunday of Doncaster's fixture was up against the Group 1-laden cards at Leopardstown and the Curragh.

"We clash more than we don't and I think the reason is that the Irish fixture list doesn't move as much for Easter and ours does and that has a knock-on effect, so we probably clash six years in seven," said Mark Spincer, managing director of Arena Racing Company's racing division. "Of course it's disappointing to clash and we don't get all of the best jockeys all the time. 

"But is it necessarily a bad thing? The racing public who are not here have a fantastic programme to watch. And on Sunday we had five races live on ITV, possibly because they also have live racing from the Curragh."

Mark Spincer: "We clash more than we don't and I think the reason is that the Irish fixture list doesn't move as much for Easter and ours does"Credit: David Davies (Getty Images/Pool)

An attendance of 23,339 on St Leger day was an increase of 11 per cent on last year, while crowds of around 10,000 on Thursday and Friday were also slightly up on 2023.

"That's probably down to a few things but the visit of the King and Queen last year raised the profile of the site and the marketing team have done a fabulous job," said Spincer.

The prime minister and his wife were among those present on Saturday and Spincer said: "It was fabulous for racing and it's particularly important for Doncaster. We were delighted to have their company and it appears they thoroughly enjoyed it." 

Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Lady Victoria were at the St Leger on SaturdayCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

The newly-instituted Sunday card, at a meeting which previously ran from Wednesday to Saturday, again attracted the smallest crowd of the week.

"This is year two and we always say it takes three years to establish anything in racing," said Spincer. "It's in the fixture list for next year and while we get live television coverage on a Sunday that helps us invest in our programme."

Assessing the return that investment produced at this year's meeting, Spincer said: "We put quite a lot more prize-money in than in 2023 and generally the races at the start of the day were good, but we'd have liked one or two more runners in some races and we'll go away and review everything."

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