York Racecourse is delighted to announce a further boost of £60,000 to the already record prize money for its flagship meeting, the Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival, which is staged between Wednesday 23 and Saturday 26 August.
Taken in conjunction with previous announcements, it sees the year on year prize fund increase by £320,000 to a record level of over £4.4 million for the four days. This represents an increase of 50% in the last five years.
The highest profile race to benefit from this latest cash injection is the Sky Bet City of York Stakes which will now offer £175,000 to the field contesting this seven furlong race on Friday 25 August, retaining it as Britain’s richest Group 3 contest.
It is also noteworthy that the minimum prize money for any race at the Festival, will now be £70,000 (2016: £60,000) following the additional boost in prize money to nine contests, including those that were already the richest maiden (British Stallion Studs EBF Convivial Maiden Stakes), richest nursery (Betway Stakes – 6f handicap on Wednesday) and richest apprentice (Betfred Apprentice Stakes – 5f handicap finale) contests in Britain.
Some 22 races, out of the 25 to be staged, have seen an increase in prize fund since their 2016 running; with every contest on the opening and closing days set to be more valuable.
As previously announced, the feature race of the week, the Group 1 Juddmonte International, already Britain’s highest rated race, according to the average three year rating by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, will become the richest race ever run at York, with £1 million on offer. The Darley Yorkshire Oaks, ranked as Europe’s highest rated contest for fillies and mares, and the Coolmore Nunthorpe, the best five furlong sprint in the world, will both see increases to reach their richest ever renewals at £350,000. The Sky Bet Lowther increases by £25,000 to £225,000 the same level as the Al Basti Equiworld Gimcrack making them Britain’s richest Group 2’s for juvenile fillies and colts, respectively.
Completing the feature race set in August is Saturday’s Betfred Ebor, with Europe’s richest flat handicap of 2016, increased again to £285,000.
York Racecourse Chairman, Lord Grimthorpe, “York is delighted that our continued commercial success in the first half of the season has allowed us to keep investing in the prize money, facilities and experience of racing at York. The Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival is our flagship meeting and we look forward to welcoming the racegoers and supporters to York to see the world’s best horses and jockeys competing on the Knavesmire. It already looks set to be a fabulous four days of racing action. Our continued thanks to our supporters and sponsors who help us to invest in racing at York.”