Crowd-pleaser: forget Super Saturday, King George day rules

Super Saturday may be inked in on the calendar as the busiest day for racing professionals, but this coming Saturday's feast of action, headed by the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, could be the best-attended day of the year.

Last year 130,594 people went racing on King George day, which fell on July 23 – the biggest aggregate daily crowd in the last ten years.

With Ascot's Qipco-backed Group 1 highlight the star turn among seven meetings in Britain on Saturday through the afternoon and evening, there is every chance that figure could be bettered.

Highland Reel was the star of the show at Ascot last year on King George dayCredit: Mark Cranham

Ascot's director of communications Nick Smith said on Sunday: "We usually get 27,500, give or take, for King George day, and 30,000 for the Shergar Cup, which is already sold out."

With nearly 294,000 people attending the five days of Royal Ascot this year, a different approach is being taken towards attendances for the track's flagship fixture, and the new Village Enclosure was opened for the final three days of the meeting to help relieve the strain on other areas of the course.

Smith added: "We're not trying to get more people for that meeting; we're looking to spread them around a wider site.

"The priority isn't cramming people in for the big meetings – that model is gone – it doesn't help with people coming back. It's about using the site better. The new area was well received and was hugely successful for everybody."

The same seven courses as last year stage meetings again this Saturday, and at York All Saints provide the post-race entertainment. With 32,262 in attendance for John Smith's Cup day on Super Saturday in the middle of the month, another big turnout is expected.

All Saints will be entertaining the crowd after racing at York on Saturday

A decent crowd is also on the cards at Salisbury, with the track teaming up with local nightclub The Chapel to provide a two-hour party after racing.

Last year's meeting attracted a crowd of 5,500, and the course's executive director Jeremy Martin said: "Advance sales are ahead by 15 per cent so we'd hope to better last year's figure."

JANUARY-JUNE COMPARISON

Aggregate attendance
2017 2,798,479
2016 2,805,467

Fixtures
2017 738
2016 707

Average attendance
2017 3,792
2016 3,968

Half-year attendances
2012 2,690,722
2013 2,628,697
2014 2,688,906
2015 2,986,782
2016 2,805,467
2017 2,798,479

It may divide opinion, but Super Saturday still attracted big crowds around Britain earlier this month, with a total 103,057 in attendance across the six meetings at Newmarket, Ascot, York, Chester, Hamilton and Salisbury.

That number was marginally down on the same day in 2016, when 103,847 went racing.

For the first six months of the year, attendance figures for British racing were slightly down on 2016. In total 2,798,479 people went racing across 738 fixtures between January and June, while for the same period last year 2,805,467 people attended 707 fixtures.

As a consequence, average attendance per fixture year-on-year was down marginally, to 3,792, against 3,968.

Racecourse chief executive Stephen Atkin said: "It's fantastic to see so many people going racing during the summer and highlights the importance of staging racing at accessible times.

"July and August always attract the biggest crowds and we are working hard with Great British Racing to promote its #StirrUpSummer campaign, which will bring new audiences to our racecourses across the next two months."

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