Bookies welcome expansion of Royal Ascot race card

The race card for this year’s Royal Ascot has been expanded to seven meetings a day.

UK.- Bookies have welcomed the decision to expand the race card for this year’s Royal Ascot to seven meetings per day.

Last year, the Copper Horse Stakes, Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes and Golden Gates Stakes flat races were fixed to the week-long event. The Buckingham Palace Stakes was also added after having been replaced by the Commonwealth Cup in 2015.

This year the card will be expanded further with the inclusion of the Kensington Palace Stakes. In total, 35 races will be held between June 15 and June 19, five more than in previous years.

Royal Ascot is Britain’s most valuable race meeting. Last year’s Royal Ascot attracted record levels of betting, coming after a drought of sports betting activity due to the cancellation of sports events because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bookmakers have responded with enthusiasm to the racetrack’s plans to expand the race card.

Ladbrokes Coral PR Director, Simon Clare, told Racing Post: “Ascot’s decision to continue with seven-race cards at the royal meeting is to be applauded as our experience from last summer shows it will deliver incremental growth to turnover over the week, and generate increased revenues from betting to racing.

“While the new races added last year were among the poorest performers in betting terms, that was to be expected as they were positioned in the weakest slots without the boost of ITV coverage, and, because they are new, they have no heritage yet with betting customers.

“They still delivered decent levels of additional turnover, with the Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes performing best as the 19th best-betting race of the week of the 35 races, and you’d expect them all to perform better as they become established.

“Royal Ascot is already the biggest week of betting in the flat season, and the permanent addition of five competitive betting races across the five days is great news all round.”

Barry Orr, Head of Media Relations at Betfair, said: “It’s massive. Having 35 races instead of 30 is like having an extra day and from a bookmaking perspective it’s such a significant move in terms of growing the event. 

“For example, from an exchange point of view I think we average £1.5m to £2m pre-race at Royal Ascot, and the meeting is well able to take an extra race; six was probably on the shy side anyway. It’s a really positive move for racing and the levy.”

The new races will run at the end of each day, with the exception of Saturday when the Queen Alexandra Stakes will close the week after the Golden Gate Stakes.

Ascot has not yet announced the TV schedule for this year’s event but bookies will be eager to see extensive TV coverage, hoping the expanded meeting will help recoup losses from last year.

Meanwhile, British horseracing has expressed fears that tougher affordability checks on UK gamblers could lead the industry to lose £60m a year