Seven per cent crowd increase for Future Champions Festival continues upward attendance trend at Newmarket this season

Newmarket’s final major fixture of 2025 drew an improved attendance of 10,916, capping a year of bolstered racegoer numbers for the town’s two racecourses.

This year’s attendance for the two days of the Future Champions Festival, at which Precise and Gewan laid down markers for next year’s Betfred 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas with victories in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile and Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes respectively, was an increase of seven per cent from last year.

Higher spectator levels has been a theme at Newmarket this year, with 34,238 people coming through the gates for the Guineas fixture in May – the largest cumulative crowd since the meeting was expanded to three days in 2022 – while the July meeting pulled in its biggest attendance since the coronavirus pandemic with 36,500 at the track over the three days.

Next year's July meeting will feature the 150th edition of the Al Basti Equiworld Dubai July Cup, for which total prize-money is being boosted to £800,000 from £600,000 as part of measures implemented in the 2026 fixture list to enhance the upper end of the sport.

Newmarket's general manager Sophie Able said: “We were delighted to be joined by nearly 11,000 racegoers over the two days of the Dubai Future Champions festival, including 165 students from Newmarket Academy on Friday and 500 more from various East Anglian universities on Saturday.

“This two-day fixture is all about looking to the future, with rising stars on the track and the next generation of racing fans off it. As always, we must say a huge thank you to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed for his ongoing support of this fixture, as demonstrated by Godolphin’s commitment to sponsoring for a further three years until 2028.”

The Rowley Mile in Newmarket is scheduled to host three more racedays in 2025, but it was the July course’s Saturday fixtures that proved to be particularly appealing for new racegoers, with 11,000 of the 44,000 spectators not having visited the track before this year, according to Newmarket.

Attendances at Britain’s racecourses in 2025 have generally been positive, with figures up to the end of August – the most recent month for which data from the BHA and Levy Board can be verified – showing an average increase of four per cent compared to the same period last year. In total, the average attendance is up six per cent since the coronavirus pandemic.

However, some courses have faced challenges with spectators, notably Newmarket’s Jockey Club-owned stablemates Epsom and Cheltenham.

Jim Allen, general manager at Epsom, said in June that the racecourse had to “make ourselves more appealing” after gates dropped by 7,500 people across the venue’s two-day flagship Derby meeting this year, with changes to the enclosures put forward as a likely amendment.

Alterations have also been made at Cheltenham in a bid to appeal to racegoers after this year’s attendance for the Cheltenham Festival was the smallest in the last decade, excluding the behind-closed-doors edition in 2021.

Among the changes are a reduction in the price of Guinness, a relaxation in where drinks can be taken, a new public address system and a reduction in the maximum permitted attendance.

Read these next:

July festival crowds up six per cent as Newmarket boss hails meeting as a showcase for the 'fantastic sport we have' 

Newmarket hails 'fantastic start' after crowds slightly up on last year's Guineas meeting 

Sign up to receive On The Nose, our essential daily newsletter, from the Racing Post. Your unmissable morning feed, direct to your email inbox every morning.