What lies ahead for the Sky Bet Ebor Festival?

You couldn’t move recently on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter, for polls asking you to rank your favourite racing festival from best to worst.

Plenty had their say, there was love at last for Cheltenham, an event that attracts more criticism than any other but then again carries the weight of the entire National Hunt season on its shoulders and it is increasingly the sole focus of the entire campaign.

We all have a view on Cheltenham. We all know how to fix it even if we can’t all agree what is actually wrong with it in the first place and all have different ideas about what to do now.

Ian Renton and the team at Prestbury Park say they have listened to all the feedback – and my word they must have big ears – and are starting to act. In Saturday’s edition of The Sun Jack Keene ran an exclusive story about a deal the track has struck with some local hotels that will help tackle extortionate prices racegoers are faced with should they dare to wish to stay in the town.

Go on, just for fun, head to your favourite travel app, type in Cheltenham and set the parameters of March 10th to 14th and see what they’re up against.

But the pressure is on race programmes too – at all the major meetings. The spectre of small fields and uncompetitive action can loom large even at the top table.

So, what does your perfect Festival look like – on the racecourse at least?

Let’s take York for example, the latest to stage their showpiece.

Crowds last month were at the forecast level, a fraction below the 2023 numbers, with the Clocktower Enclosure in the centre of the track suffering most after Storm Lillian blew into town on Thursday, decimating train services and testing the mettle of anyone who fancied spending that and Friday afternoon on one of the usually sought-after picnic benches.

The Knavesmire is a popular course, people love being there, the racing professionals wax lyrical about the treatment they, their staff, and horses receive.

It’s a meeting where prize-money grows year on year, an ambitious festival that wants to get bigger and bigger.

But is the balance of the racing right?

Graham Cunningham, on our very own podcast two weeks ago, talked about the number of handicaps across the four days.

The Sky Bet Ebor Festival has 28 races, three Group Ones, five Group Twos, two Group Threes, two Listed races, the Goffs sales race and the most valuable two-year-old maiden of the season in the UK.

That’s half of the programme.

The other half are handicaps – and as competitive as you’d expect them to be.

But what would you replace them with if you wanted to cut back a little? Clearly with the pattern in place, nothing more can be done for the elite category, the Rous Selling Stakes was originally on the running order a few years ago but has now settled elsewhere and would its return even attract a flicker of attention?

Another two-year-old maiden? Well, we’re starting to dilute.

And if you look at the handicaps the smallest field of the week was 12 for the Sky Bet Handicap on Friday, a race that could theoretically take horses away from the Ebor or Melrose.

Shadow Dance won that, and he was in the meeting’s Saturday showstopper until the final declaration stage. In a normal year plenty need this safety net – but in 2024 the six-day entries for the big race were down.

The middle-distance and staying pool is dangerously thin. The Sky Bet Great Voltigeur Stakes on the opening day was the only contest of the week to attract less than eight runners. Sometimes you just can’t fight the headwinds. Mind you it was won by the Irish Derby hero - a Group One winner dipping his toes back into Group Two waters.

Everything else was ultra-competitive. An improving three-year-old Thunder Run (6/1) won the Clipper Handicap, it was the same story in the Sky Bet Constantine on Saturday with 7/2 favourite Elmonjed cutting down Strike Red.

The Ebor itself went to the well backed Magical Zoe, the Melrose to Tabletalk, a horse who ran in the Derby and whose victory on handicap debut had journalists huddled over a phone in the press room asking Tom Clover whether a St Leger tilt might be next.

Big horses winning the big prizes – a theme of the week. But does that make the meeting a success? Does it mean it works as well as it could?

Well as you ponder what, if anything, you’d tweak at York, there are those whose job it is to actually make those decisions. And for William Derby, Chief Executive and Clerk of the Course, there are clear criteria against how to judge whether Ebor week was a success.

“For the Sky Bet Ebor Festival it’s very much the racing first and foremost, the quality of the horses and the quality of the competition,” he said.

“It’s also about the atmosphere and was it positive for racegoers and people connected to the sport, and of course the financials, not just attendances but it’s hospitality, betting turnover, ITV viewing figures, and on those three metrics we were incredibly proud of the Ebor Festival and how it went.

“We’ve had hugely positive feedback from people about the racing and their anecdotes from the days. You’ll always get some people who tell you things that can be improved upon and we listen to that feedback and act where we can and need to, but overwhelmingly the postbag post-Ebor was positive.”

And as for the race programme itself – is that reviewed?

“All of the time. One of the big races we wanted to focus on this time last year was the Tattersalls Acomb Stakes and we made a submission to have the restrictions lifted which they were,” Derby continued.

“As a result, we had the biggest field of 11 that we’ve had in many years in the Acomb, five of which wouldn’t have been able to run in previous seasons. To have had going into the race the Derby favourite and 2000 Guineas favourite doing battle, Godolphin v Ballydoyle, was exciting.

“And coming out of the race The Lion In Winter is favourite for both Classics, we couldn’t have been more pleased with how it went.

“We’ll review the race programme again this year but every race bar the Sky Bet Great Voltigeur had eight or more runners which is a key industry target, and we had a record number of runners across the race programme all week.”

Derby and the York team continue to push for Group One status for the Sky Bet City of York Stakes too.

They didn’t get the green light from the European Pattern Committee last year, and many feared the result of the 2024 renewal can only further delay the quest.

However, when you consider the morning defection of Kinross, second favourite Lake Poet playing up in the stalls and being withdrawn and clear market leader Audience, boxed next to his rival, going on to run 16 pounds below par on Timeform ratings, the damage isn’t as severe as you might first think.

“If you take the ratings of the first four home - as things stand and I know it’s done on the year end – then we’re within two pounds of where we need to be anyway,” Derby revealed.

“We remain totally invested in the race and are determined to see it get the Group One status. The logic of its position in the calendar still holds and obviously we’ll be judged by year end and see how we go.”

Breege, the shock winner, could do her bit in France next month with connections intending to supplement her into the Prix de la Forêt.

Then there’s the Sky Bet Ebor, won for a second successive season by an Irish jumping behemoth. A short-term trend or something more significant?

“Magical Zoe was a hugely popular winner and incredibly well backed. The Henry De Bromhead story is well told and he’s such a lovely man as were the other connections,” the York chief continued.

“She was a memorable winner, but I don’t think just because Willie Mullins won it one year and Henry the next that suddenly all Irish jumps trainers are going to dominate the race for years to come.

“It obviously takes a certain type of very talented staying horse to win. Different connections have won over different years but it’s interesting she was a slightly unexposed staying mare who had come via the hurdling route, similar to Absurde did the year before.”

He headed straight to the Emirates Melbourne Cup from York and that golden ticket, the chance to win a guaranteed spot in the race that stops a nation, is another recent development at the Ebor Festival of which the York team are rightly so proud.

“We are very proud of that connection to the Victoria Racing Club and Melbourne. It looks like Vauban, having won the Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup, is heading for the Melbourne Cup, Absurde is returning having run with credit last year.

“I’m not sure whether Magical Zoe is going but that pathway from York to Flemington is becoming increasingly well-trodden and the international ballot exempt status of the Sky Bet Ebor is a well sought route to Melbourne.”

No racing festival is the same for all they face some familiar and shared challenges, attendances an obvious one. But there's no battle in North Yorkshire in terms of attracting runners, offering competitive prize-money and giving people the experience they expect from a high-end event.

Don’t expect huge changes to the last of the great summer meetings in 2025, but as the Acomb showed last month, don’t underestimate the importance or significance of any tweaks that are made before then either.

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