Newmarket set for fixture reshuffle

Newmarket expect to offer record prize money of £7.4m (€11m) during the 2007 season after re-jigging their traditional racing calendar.

Officials at Headquarters have rearranged their fixtures and although they will still host a total of 37 meetings, they have created two new Friday-Saturday race meetings on May 18-19 and September 21-22.

Newmarket director of racing Michael Prosser said: “Our Levy Board contributions are set to drop by some £185,000 (€276,000) this year, so we will be putting up some £275,000 (€410,000) in additional prize money in order to make up for this shortfall and fund the overall increase.

“To help generate the extra income that we need to make this possible, we have conducted a comprehensive review of our race programme and are making some important changes to our fixture list.

“While the main aim has been to try to maximise attendances and television and sponsorship revenue, another key aim was to strengthen the race programme at several of our key spring and autumn fixtures.”

The Craven meeting in April has been cut to two days with the Nell Gwyn now on the Wednesday. Last year’s stand-alone fixture on the second Saturday in May will now be one week later.

The valuable Suffolk Heritage Handicap, which was previously run on the second Saturday in May, is being moved to the Sunday of the Stan James Guineas Festival - six days earlier than last year.

The new September meeting has been made possible by moving the previous September Tuesday raceday, which was a card dedicated to two-year-olds, and by cutting the October meeting from three days to two days on October 19 and October 20 – the latter being Champions’ Day.

The Champions’ Day card will be unchanged, but the best races from the Thursday and Friday programmes are retained and concentrated on the Friday card.