Doncaster ends Flat season without November Handicap sponsor or boss

Doncaster's difficult end to the Flat season continues on Saturday with no sponsor for the November Handicap and no executive director in place.

But the track is confident that racing will go ahead with no repeat of the torrential rain that forced the abandonment of last month's Vertem Futurity Trophy meeting, before the Group 1 was later saved and run on the all-weather at Newcastle.

The traditional feature event on the last day of the turf Flat season was backed by Marathonbet as a one-off last year, taking over from Betfred, who had supported the race from 2011 to 2017.

They in turn replaced long-term sponsor Totesport, whose last running in 2010 was worth £100,000, whereas this year's race is a £70,000 contest.

Doncaster Saturday card and betting

Russell Smith took the helm at Doncaster in January, succeeding Tim Banfield who left after two years for reported family reasons, but he departed in September to return to his native Scotland and has yet to be replaced.

"Doncaster is such a big business that we're making sure we're going through the right process to get the right person," said Sam Cone, PR and communications manager for Arena Racecourse Company.

"Russell left after the Leger meeting but we've got a very experienced management team in place day to day whilst the process of replacing him is under way. And they're being fully supported by other senior members of the Arc team."

Doncaster is one of three Arc tracks with no permanent executive director in place, alongside Bath and Worcester.

"It's not ideal but we've got 16 different tracks and there will always be natural turnover," Cone said. "People do leave. It just happens we've had three at the same time.

"Jenny Cheshire is retiring at Worcester after 19 years and Jo Hall is leaving Bath shortly after seven years. For both of those we anticipate making an announcement pretty shortly."

The ground was officially soft at Doncaster on Tuesday and clerk of the course Roderick Duncan warned that conditions would be testing on Saturday, though there were no fears for the meeting.

Roderick Duncan: expects testing conditionsCredit: David Carr

"We're in fairly good order at the moment," Duncan said. "It's dried back from where we were, but we had 15mm of rain over last Friday and Saturday which put us to soft.

"There's a chance of significant rain on Wednesday night into Thursday, then it looks like being dry until racing on Saturday. I think soft is the best we can hope for but there's the potential for heavy in places."

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