Newmarket's Guineas meeting to become three-day fixture from 2022

Newmarket’s Guineas meeting will be extended to three days in 2022 with a Friday to be added to the fixture alongside the Qipco-backed Classics on the Saturday and Sunday.

A three-day fixture was run at the Rowley Mile at the start of June 2020 after racing resumed following the three-month coronavirus shutdown of the sport, with 2003 being the last time the Guineas meeting was run over three days as part of a regular fixture list.

Sophie Able, general manager at Newmarket, said the extension allowed the track to “optimise” the racing programme as well as providing more opportunities for people to go racing.

She said: “We’re delighted to be enhancing one of British racing’s most prestigious Flat racing fixtures and a meeting which has shown sustained growth in the last decade.

“An additional day means more flexibility to optimise the meeting’s race programme both for participants and those who follow and bet on racing, as well as the chance to use the existing infrastructure to create another great day out for our customers.

“There are wider benefits too in terms of the shape of Newmarket’s early season fixture list, more recovery time for the course itself and an easier operational switch onto the July Course.”

However, while the 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas attracted double-figure fields this year, Newmarket suffered from poor turnouts in a number of other races at the meeting with the ten runners in the Suffolk Stakes the only one of the eight handicaps to not be a single-figure field.

The Guineas meeting kicks off the Qipco British Champions Series, as well as the Flat jockeys’ championship, and Champions Series chief executive Rod Street believes extending the meeting will help boost engagement levels with racing.

He said: “We welcome the fact that racegoers will be able to enjoy a third day of brilliant racing from the Rowley Mile.

“Whilst the circumstances in 2020 were very different, we have seen the interest that a three-day festival is able to generate and very much view this as a chance to engage more people in one of racing’s most important events.”

The 2022 fixture list for British racing is set to be released next week with scrutiny falling on it with fields of fewer than six runners being at their highest levels for 25 years on the Flat in August.

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