Ripon’s traditional Bank Holiday Meeting on Monday and Tuesday (August 25 & 26) is set to feature some of the major races of the year at Yorkshire’s ‘Garden Racecourse’. There are seven races on both days. 

Bank Holiday Monday’s programme begins at 2-25 p.m. with the highlight being The Ripon Champion Two-Years-Old Trophy 2014 – the only Listed race staged at Ripon. This £30,000 contest for precocious juveniles over six furlongs is supported by The European Breeders’ Fund under the Irish Stallion Farms banner. The race was won last year by Supplicant, trained at Malton by Richard Fahey. The colt went on to win the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury. 

The Ripon Rowels Handicap Stakes (a £20,000 contest over one mile) is the main supporting race, while The Billy Nevett Memorial Handicap Stakes, a race for three-year-old sprinters, commemorates a former top northern jockey, who rode three wartime Derby winners, including Dante in 1945 – the last northern-trained horse to win the Classic. In a long and distinguished career as a jockey, Billy Nevett rode 2,068 winners between 1924 and 1956, recording his 2,000th winner at a Ripon meeting in 1955. He passed away in 1992, aged 86. 

The concluding race on Monday is the penultimate contest in The Betfair Novice Flat Amateur Riders’ Series.

 Racing on Tuesday is set to start at 2-00 p.m. The afternoon’s feature race is The attheraces.com City of Ripon Stakes, a handicap contest over one mile and a quarter, while two-year-old sprinters take part in The 21 Regiment Royal Engineers Sapper Conditions Stakes over five furlongs. This race is named in honour of the Ripon-based 21 Regiment Royal Engineers, members of which are making their annual visit to their local racecourse. 

Ripon’s permanent giant screen will enable racegoers to have an even closer view of the action on the track. There’s musical entertainment from the bandstand on Bank Holiday Monday by The Tom Roberts Jazz Band, and there’s a selection of attractions for children in the Course Enclosure, such as bouncy castles, face-painting, an inflatable assault course, balloon modelling, along animals from the locally-based Riggamoor Reindeer Farm. There are designated play areas for youngsters, and as usual, children under 18 years of age will be admitted free of charge into all enclosures.