Exclusive - York’s Ebor Festival could go behind closed doors

Contingency arrangements are now being drawn up because of a growing realisation that the national Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ may not be fully lifted until the end of summer.

Already next month’s season-opening Dante Festival on the Knavesmire, and its high-profile May 30 meeting which was due to be York’s first Saturday raceday of 2020, have been cancelled.

And while the British Horseracing Authority is still hopeful that some meetings can resume on a limited basis next month with strict quarantine protocols in place, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden – who is responsible for sport – said it would have to be “consistent with the scientific evidence”.

Now York chief executive William Derby has confirmed that he, and his senior team, are considering different scenarios for the Welcome to Yorkshire-sponsored Ebor Festival which remains one of the most prestigious – and valuable – in the entire Flat racing calendar.

Graced by all-time greats like Sir Henry Cecil’s imperious Frankel in 2012, and Enable last August when Frankie Dettori’s horse of a lifetime won the Yorkshire Oaks to popular acclaim, the four-day meeting attracts national and international exposure as well as up to 100,000 racegoers over its duration.

Last year also saw the first ever £1m running of the Sky Bet Ebor, Europe’s richest Flat handicap, with Irish raider Mustajeer winning under Colin Keane.

“We are planning for the Ebor meeting to go ahead as normal in front of a crowd, and that would be our preference,” explained Derby who has allowed stable staff accommodation at the course to be used by NHS workers in the interim.

“We are starting to think how we would run the Ebor behind closed doors just as a planning exercise and if that is possible. It’s only just entered our thinking.”

He is utilising, amongst others, the experience of head of racing Anthea Morshead who presided over a ‘behind closed doors’ meeting at Kelso in March just a day before the sport was suspended.

A key consideration, confirmed Derby, is the fact that the racecourse is effectively part of a large expanse of land leased from the City of York Council. He said: “It’s not straightforward with the wide open spaces of the Knavesmire.

“We wouldn’t want to race behind closed doors and suddenly find a crowd congregrating around the start. We would have to consider how to secure the Knavesmire.”

He also said it would not be possible to stage the historic meeting if York – and the rest of the country – was in a state of lockdown.

“While the county is in lockdown, there will be no racing,” he stressed. “But our plan, and our expectation, is racing to go ahead as usual but it is prudent to think ahead if the current restrictions are extended to the autumn.”

The Ebor Festival was last cancelled in 2008 due to flooding with flagship races moved to other tracks.

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