St Leger proves a winner for Arena Leisure

The group said September's St Leger festival, held at Doncaster racecourse, helped boost attendances at all its racecourses between July and October to 292,000, compared with 279,000 a year earlier.

Attendance over the four days of the festival was up by 7,000 to 60,000, including a Saturday crowd of 30,000 compared with 27,000 a year earlier, Arena said. However, it said a reduction in the levy paid by bookmakers to support horseracing hit profitability from July.

The corporate and private hospitality business saw some recovery, although it continues to be "severely impacted" by the economic conditions, said the group.

This recovery was in line with the 15 per cent improvement achieved in the first half of the year.

It added: "Despite a challenging trading environment, Arena's core business has moved forward successfully in 2010.

"Improved racecourse attendances together with good development of ATR's international media rights business have helped to mitigate the pressure on corporate spend and the impact of industry funding reductions."

The group said: "Although we remain cautious about the last two months of the year, particularly on hotel trading and non-racing events, we expect to deliver a full year result in line with market expectations."

The group said Arena remains well placed with its increasing diversification of income streams, but warned that 2011 would be another challenging year.

The annual St Leger festival has great economic significance for the economy of Doncaster.

Earlier this year town hall chiefs outlined plans to stage a week of events around the world-famous meeting, including guided heritage walks around the town and musical performances, to promote the area as a destination for tourism and business.