Dante Festival begins at York Racecourse today
It's the start of a record-breaking 2018 season.
Action for the 2018 season at York Racecourse gets underway with the three day Dante Festival today.
With a record investment across the season of over £8m in prize money (up £500k), two new Group Three contests, as well as the opening of the redeveloped Clocktower Enclosure and ongoing improvements across the racecourse; excitement is building for the summer ahead on the Knavesmire.
Prize money over the three days of the Dante Festival has risen for the seventh year in succession to £1.2m, and every race is worth £20,000 or more. With a feature race on each day sitting within the top 250 contests in the world, the York season begins with a feast of top quality racing.
Wednesday’s £100,000 Tattersalls Musidora is one of now twenty three races across the York season to offer at least a six figure sum to connections. A feature race for three year old fillies, the Musidora has proved to be a leading form indicator for the Investec Oaks, with six champion fillies that have gone on to achieve Classic glory. Typically, fillies from the Musidora return as older horses to contest the £125,000 Group 2 Betfred Middleton Stakes on the Thursday of the Festival.
The champion sprinter of last season, Harry Angel, looks set to go to post in the fastest contest of the week, the Group Two Duke of York Clipper Logistics Stakes, staged over just six furlongs, expect to see the winner in the mix for all the summer’s big sprints. This year’s renewal also looks likely to include last year’s victor, Tasleet, as another that already boasts a Group One sprinting prize.
The Betfred Dante, the race that gives the Festival its name by honouring the last Yorkshire trained winner of the Derby back in 1945, is staged on Thursday. This Group Two contest, offering a prize fund of £165,000 is one of ten contests on the Knavesmire that sit proudly within the top two hundred contests anywhere in the world, according to the respected TRC Global Rankings. The Dante winner has gone on to win the Investec Derby ten times, with Golden Horn the last to achieve that double two seasons ago.
The new season at York Racecourse, will see the opening of a £5m improvement scheme to the grassed infield area which runs parallel to the final furlong of the track. Along with the enhanced racegoer experience, will come a new name, The Clocktower Enclosure, which references the Listed building that enjoys an unrivalled view of the racing action, framed against the back-drop of the stands. It replaces the term “Course Enclosure”.
Main contractor, Lindum York, has delivered two large, modern toilet blocks at either end of the grass banking, twin canopies either side of the famous clocktower that offer catering and betting facilities as well as some racegoer cover, improved access for pushchairs and wheelchairs plus a refurbishment of the turnstiles.
York are pleased to be offering complimentary guided minibus trips to the start for racegoers; these will be taken by former professional flat jockey, John Murray, as another example of initiatives to further explain the sport and get racegoers closer to the action.
A new giant screen has been installed in the canopy over the John Carr Stand bringing the racing action alive to racegoers enjoying the champagne lawns in the shadow of the Grade 2* Listed John Carr Stand that dates from 1755, with a further large outdoor screen permanently in place in above the Roberto Lawn in the Grandstand and Paddock enclosure. This increases the provision to five giant screens at York which will join the 100 plus LCD flat screen televisions in showing high definition (HD) pictures of the action; a benefit also available to viewers of Racing UK for all twenty-one races.
The appropriate use of technology is a recurring theme at the track,voted as Best in Britain by the Racegoers Club for last two seasons, in another example, credit card & contactless payment is available at all the permanent food and drinks outlets including in the soon to open Clocktower Enclosure.
For further details about the Dante Festival and the season ahead, please visit York’s website on www.yorkracecourse.co.uk