Sport of kings remains a big draw

However, it is a reminder that the sport is in a tough battle for leisure pound – the 5.98m racegoers recorded in 2016 was marginally less than the 6.1m paying customers the previous year.

Yet, while football remains dominant, horse racing only moves up a place in the latest league table because the World Cup skewed the number of attendees at rugby union matches in 2015.

According to analysis by sports marketing experts Two Circles for the Racecourse Association, July was the most popular month for horse racing with nearly one million spectators in total. It attributed this number to the popularity of major meetings at Sandown, Newmarket and Goodwood.

Average attendance at all National Hunt meetings was 4,081 racegoers. On average, 4,228 people attended Flat meetings – huge crowds at the big summer festivals offset by a negligible turnout at many all-weather fixtures.

Stephen Atkin, Racecourse Association chief executive, said: “It is very pleasing to see racing return to the second best attended sport in Britain against a backdrop of unfavourably wet weather during the first quarter and the competition of the Rio Olympic Games and Euro 2016.

“Through intelligent use of this data racecourses can now make targeted improvements to the raceday experience.”

Rod Street, chief executive of Great British Racing, added: “The research reinforces the fact that racing is a brilliant day out that caters and appeals to a wide range of people.

“We know from the work undertaken by Two Circles that racing has a higher percentage of female fans (39 per cent) against the all sport average of 20 per cent and this insight, together with the fact that racing is one of the best value days out for families, will inform our work in 2017.”

JIMMY Moffatt reports the ever popular Highland Lodge to be on track to make his next appearance in the Randox Health Grand National.

The intention is to send the 11-year-old straight to the Aintree marathon on April 8, for which he is a general 50-1 chance, without a prep run.

The former Emma Lavelle-trained gelding was denied back-to-back wins in the Becher Chase over the famous fences last month when going down by a short head to Vieux Lion Rouge.

It was one of Middleham jockey Henry Brooke’s first rides since he suffered life-threatening injuries in a fall.

Moffatt, who trains in Cumbria, said: “Highland Lodge is fine. The plan after the Becher was to give him a couple of months of easy work, then build him back up for the Grand National.

“I’ve been in racing long enough to take defeats like the Becher on the chin. We have been on the good end of a few photo-finishes so we were due one the other way.

“We have no issue not giving him a prep run, as we don’t really want to race him through the bad ground. Some horses need to run all the time and some are better fresh and he is the latter.

“Last year he only just missed out on getting in the race, but he is now rated 140 and hopefully with a pull in the weights he should have enough to get in. There is no such thing as a guarantee, though, so we’ll just have to sit on it and weight for them (National weights) to come out on February 14.”