Racing League chief 'pleased' with fields despite five races failing to fill

The first meeting of the Racing League takes place on Thursday at Doncaster but only two of the seven races have attracted a full field of 14 runners.

There are seven regional teams instead of the 12 sponsored teams last year, with field sizes capped at 14 runners per race – two from each team.

Each of the handicaps for runners aged three and older are worth £50,000 and £25,000 is up for grabs in the juvenile races, but this has not helped the Class 4 nursery which will have the smallest field on the card with just 11 declarations.

The nursery is the fourth most valuable Class 4 race for two-year-olds run in Britain since 1988 and Jeremy Wray, Racing League CEO, said he was not surprised at the lower turn-out comparing it to other recent nurseries.

"The nursery is the one we've introduced this year as we were keen to give opportunities to those horses but that was the one I was most concerned about," said Wray. "Looking at nursery field-sizes across the board, for whatever reason they are struggling.

"The important thing was it wasn't any one team struggling, it was just individual cases. To be getting 11 there with all teams represented and only three second horses missing is pretty good."

Scotland, the North, Ireland, Yorkshire, Wales and the West, the East and London and the South are the seven teams that will compete across 42 races in six meetings held on Thursday evenings – each televised on ITV4.

In the nursery there was only one declaration from the North, Yorkshire and the East teams.

Wales and the West are the only team with two runners in each of the seven races with all the other teams missing at least one, and the East having only one runner in two races.

The Racing League has attracted 90 runners out of a maximum of 98Credit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

A total of 90 horses have been declared across the seven races against a maximum of 98 but Wray was pleased they had achieved almost full capacity.

"I think 90 is a pretty good number," added Wray. "Maybe we should have had more entries at the entry stage – we'll look at that for next week – but overall I've got to be pleased.

"We've got good field sizes and super competitive racing. Obviously in a perfect world we'd love to have 14 in every race but it doesn't always happen.

"Last year we suffered because we had defined squad sizes and people were just running out of horses that could go again, this time we've got a bigger pool to choose from.

"Different regions have different horses. There are far more mile and a half horses in one area than there are sprinters in another area.

"The managers have worked really hard, they were running around checking what they've got. A couple of intended runners dropped out at the last minute for normal racing issues, normal horse issues."

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