Sky Bet Ebor Festival: William Derby ready for the challenge

By David Ord

15:05 · THU August 15, 2024

David Ord speaks to York chief William Derby who is ready to put on the track's biggest show of the season.

For many of us the York racing season bookends our own Flat campaign, from the rich promise of the Dante Festival through the colder, darker days in October when the leaves are falling, the nights drawing in and thoughts turn to Closutton and Ditcheat and away from Ballydoyle and Newmarket.

But the biggest four days, well they're just around the corner now, the Sky Bet Ebor Festival.

It's the last of the great British summer meetings, three Group Ones, and a host of valuable pattern races and fiendishly difficult handicaps. With star names from throughout the world heading there, racegoers in the grandstand and paddock enclosure able to enjoy wonderful new facilities and connections chasing record prize-money, it's little wonder chief executive and clerk of the course William Derby is as excited as anyone on the eve of the meeting.

“We're very much looking forward to it. The site is set. The multi-million pound southern end development which we started this time last year in terms of applying for planning permission which was approved in October and the builders started as soon as the race season finished in October, is now complete," he says.

“It really transforms that area of the site and we’ll be formally opening that at the Sky Bet Ebor Festival. In terms of the site, the track, the facilities, we’re all ready and in terms of the racing we’ve invested a further £400,000 in prize-money to take us up to £6.8million to attract the best horses in the world to come and race at York.

“And it looks as though the line-ups for the big races will be every bit as high quality as they’ve been before with an international element which perhaps we haven’t seen in recent years.

“That’s really exciting and in City Of Troy we have the highest rated turf colt in the world at the moment coming for the richest race we’ll have ever staged at York, the £1.25m Juddmonte International.”

There’s a genuine excitement from Derby at the prospect of a Japanese star locking horns with Aidan O’Brien’s poster boy in the Wednesday feature as well as Australian speedball Asfoora heading to the Knavesmire after her star turn at Royal Ascot and narrow Goodwood second to Big Evs under a penalty.

“It excites us as a team at the racecourse but more importantly really resonates with our racegoers at York,” he beamed. “We want to see the best horses and the best jockeys competing here.

“Last year we had Mostahdaf who was the joint highest-rated horse in Europe, win our feature race and this year we are trying to build on that. We’ve got a Grade One winner from Japan in Durezza coming for the Juddmonte International, Asfoora representing Australia, it generates interest in the track and attendance, for people to watch it on Racing TV and ITV, and it also stimulates betting activity both domestically and globally, with the World Pool in operation for the first three days, as well as Japan simulcasting the Juddmonte International. It very much excites us and is what we are all about.”

Momentum is so vital for any racecourse, the ability to build their big fixtures year-on-year. So what’s the current state of play with this August showpiece?

“We really feel the Sky Bet Ebor Festival is on an upward trajectory. We can measure that empirically through the quality of the horses that are coming, the prize-money, the way the world engages with the meeting, and you feel it too," Derby said.

“We speak to trainers in the UK, Ireland and around the world and the meeting is on the global scale and we keep adding to the prize-money and facilities to keep the horses and the people coming. Success builds on success.”

There are of course many issues affecting the sport right now, one of the most pertinent for Derby and the team is the struggle to get racegoers through the turnstiles in the same numbers as we saw in the pre-Covid era.

“In terms of ticket sales we’re on a par with where we were last year, we’d always want more people to be here to enjoy the sport and are working hard on that, but we’ve done OK this season," he reasons.

“Undoubtedly there are challenges and headwinds we’ve all read about, not only in racing, but attendance at other events, cinemas and theme parks but what we are determined to do is keep investing in prize money and facilities and offer good value for a day out.

“We don’t charge for parking, in the County Stand you get a complimentary racecard, we try and keep our food and drink offer very local, high quality and we hope people can come here and enjoy a great day. A bottle of champagne at York at the Ebor Festival is £43 and I don’t know of another festival where there’s better value.”

Big Festivals work together

York is the final boarding call for those who want to enjoy the August sunshine and Group One racing action. Is there are a sense of responsibility in picking up the baton from Ascot and Goodwood?

“We work in partnership with our colleagues at those tracks and work very hard on international recruitments," Derby says.

“We have very good personal relationships with the teams at those great meetings and it also makes sense for the best of the British Flat season to work together and we certainly do that. We’ve had a fabulous Royal Ascot and a wonderful Qatar Goodwood Festival, both characterised by unbroken sunshine which we pray for a bit of.

“There’s responsibility but also excitement. I feel like the season has really built and the storylines and formlines have all come together and culminate in Britain with the Sky Bet Ebor Festival. We have all the horses at this crossroads here before they go around the world for their autumn targets.”

So what is Derby most looking forward to at this year's meeting?

“Seeing the best horses and jockeys at York, whether that’s Christophe Lemaire coming over or Ryan Moore, we’re talking about real elite sportsmen and sportswomen in the weighing room," he enthuses.

“I’m very excited and proud of what the team have achieved with the southern end development and I’m looking forward to seeing that come to life and racegoers enjoying that facility in the grandstand and paddock enclosure. Watching it turn form an underused and underinvested area of the racecourse into a state of the art facility everyone can enjoy is very exciting.

“And I’m looking forward to some of the innovations we’re doing this year, whether that's around the Ebor Fashion Lawn supported by Grantley Hall, the initiative we’re doing on Coolmore Nunthorpe day to celebrate and amplify our jockeys, or things like parachute displays and Yorkshire brass bands, it will all really help the whole festival come to life.”

That's never an issue at York. Strap yourself in. The best four days of the Flat season are almost upon us.

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