Go Racing In Yorkshire Festival to resume this summer 'come what may'

The Go Racing In Yorkshire Summer Festival will return, whether or not lockdown restrictions on racing are eased a fortnight on Monday.

The nine-day promotional event, which was first staged in 2008, had to be scrapped last summer when a reduced fixture list was taking place behind closed doors.

The first meetings this year, at Ripon, Doncaster and Redcar, are scheduled for the weekend of July 17-18, before the much-heralded next step in the roadmap towards ending pandemic restrictions.

It is unclear what immediate impact those changes will have on the crowds allowed on racecourses. Go Racing In Yorkshire manager Charlotte Russell said: "We were always planning that the festival would happen one way or another.

"The courses said come what may we will deliver a festival and we're fully behind it, as were Sky Bet the sponsors. It was good to have that positivity.

"It's a really good week to showcase all that's great about racing in Yorkshire – the fact we have racing of every level for every type of horse, that there are loads of opportunities for owners – and to showcase the differences between the courses but how they're united by the strong Yorkshire brand."

Charlotte Russell: 'It's a really good week to showcase all that's great about racing in Yorkshire'Credit: David Carr

Thirsk's meeting on July 23 is part of the festival and chief executive James Sanderson said: "We don’t know yet whether we’ll have any restrictions after July 19, though I suspect we’ll still have some constraints.”

Sanderson stressed that the event was about more than just increasing gate receipts during the festival itself, and added: "It's a celebration of racing in the county and I believe it makes people buy into other fixtures. They think, 'They're always racing in Yorkshire, next time we're there let’s go racing'.

"We don't see our tickets soar exponentially on the festival Friday but we know there's massive awareness beyond the county of racing in Yorkshire because of it and that's why we think it's such a great promotion."

2021 festival fixtures

Saturday, July 17 – Ripon, Doncaster (evening)
Sunday, July 18 – Redcar
Monday, July 19 – Beverley (evening)
Wednesday, July 21 – Catterick
Thursday, July 22 – Doncaster (evening)
Friday, July 23 – Thirsk, York (evening)
Saturday, July 24 – York
Sunday, July 25 – Pontefract

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