Doncaster hoping new Racing League format can attract new audience

Doncaster hopes the new Racing League format will help to attract a wider audience to the sport as it prepares to host the opening fixture on Thursday.

The series, which drew criticism for being too exclusive during its inaugural year in 2021, has had a significant revamp this season with seven regional teams set to take part across six meetings during the next six weeks.

Doncaster's clerk of the course Paul Barker hopes to see maximum field sizes of 14 declared for each of the seven races, all of which will be broadcast on ITV4 for the first time. Matt Chapman will lead the presenting duties and will be joined by Luke Harvey, Jason Weaver, Natalie Green and commentator Mark Johnson.

"I was really pleased with the number of entries. I'd imagine there will be quite a bit of banter between captains being such competitive people. I'm sure they'll be driving their jockeys along," Barker said.

"We're all looking forward to the new format, with lots of runners. It will hopefully be a bit more competitive with the regional teams. I'm sure the Yorkshire team's supporters will be very loud, especially if they have a winner early on.

"ITV will be with us too, which will be a nice bit of publicity for those who can't attend and can see the format on terrestrial television. Hopefully they can look at it and think it looks good, so they attend future meetings."

A Retraining of Racehorses (RoR) parade will take place half an hour before the first race gets under way. Tickets start at £15 for grandstand entry and racegoers can also buy a 'Double the Fun' ticket online for £20, which will also include admission for Southwell's Racing League fixture on September 8.

Barker added: "There's a nice parade from the RoR and we may have some old favourites in. It's just about trying to engage the newer audience and hopefully we can get them into the new format.

"Hopefully we get some racegoers who have never been racing so that we can showcase the best of our sport to them."

Read more . . .

What's on this week: a Group 1 on Tuesday and the Racing League returns on ITV

Grant Tuer gives thumbs up to new-look Racing League as entries revealed

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