Arc boosts prize-money by £200,000 at next week's St Leger festival

A cash injection of £200,000 has been announced for next week's Cazoo St Leger festival by Arena Racing Company (Arc) alongside minimum prize-money of £75,000 for jumps fixtures during the core season.

The additional funds for Doncaster's big meeting will be invested in supporting races during the four-day festival, which begins next Wednesday, has more than £2.6 million on offer, and is headlined by the Cazoo St Leger, the final Classic of the season in Britain.

All Class 2 handicaps at Doncaster next week will be run for at least £50,000, with the exception of the nursery on Wednesday which will be worth £35,000 (a £10,000 boost), while the Coral Portland Cup will be run for £100,000 for the first time, an increase of £25,000 on last season.

Arc, which operates 16 racecourses across Britain, also announced that all of its jumps fixtures between September 1 and March 31 will be worth at least £75,000 in prize-money. The group's jumps tracks include Chepstow, which stages its season opener in October.

"We're really pleased to confirm this investment in prize-money at the Cazoo St Leger festival," said Mark Spincer, managing director of Arc's racing division. "Across the four days we have looked at the programme of handicaps and other supporting races and look forward to getting under way next week.

Arc's jumps meetings, including at Chepstow (pictured), will receive a minimum guarantee of £75,000 through the core seasonCredit: Edward Whitaker

"With regards our jumps programme this winter, we wanted to continue the initiative that we started in the second half of last season in offering a minimum guarantee of £75,000 at all fixtures.

"Of course a number of meetings will be above that threshold, but from September until the end of March, we hope that it will give racehorse owners running horses across all of our jump tracks reassurance as to the prizes on offer."

Last week, the publication of the 2023 fixture list coincided with the announcement of an increase in minimum race values. Class 2 Flat handicaps for horses aged three and older will be worth a minimum of £25,000, a £6,000 rise, and there were similar rises over jumps.

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