Doncaster's Spring Mile to go ahead despite not meeting race conditions criteria

The return of Flat racing on turf has done nothing to alleviate the curse of small fields, with Doncaster electing to persist with the Spring Mile Handicap (2.25) on Saturday's Lincoln card despite the consolation event not meeting the criterion of ten runners in the race's conditions.

The Spring Mile's lowest ever field, on a card where the Listed Doncaster Mile Stakes (3.00) also has just four runners – its joint lowest in the past decade – continues the theme of declining field sizes since the second half of last year.

There has been an increase in the number of races with five runners or fewer since late summer and the number of runners in Britain per race between August and November was at its lowest this century.

January's field sizes were still the lowest in four years, while last week's Cheltenham Festival continued the trend with the meeting attracting its lowest average fields bar the previous year's behind-closed-doors event since Racing Post records began in 1988.

Doncaster Saturday card

The conditions for the Spring Mile, which is open to four-year-olds and upwards who were declared to run in the Lincoln but were eliminated at the 48-hour stage, state it must have ten declarations, otherwise there is the option for it to be cancelled by the racecourse.

The Lincoln (3.35), worth £100,000 on the SBK-sponsored card, attracted a full field with 22 of the top 28 horses declared, leaving 14 possible runners for the Spring Mile. But just nine of those were declared, resulting in its considerably smallest field since the first running in 1993.

The 2019 edition attracted 16 runners and five other runnings have yielded a field of 17-19 runners, with more than 20 runners contesting 22 of its 28 runnings.

Doncaster clerk of the course Paul Barker said: "The race was declared this morning and we've had the details through for it. The field size is clearly down and we're trying to understand why there aren't as many horses who have ended up in the Spring Mile after being balloted out of the Lincoln.

"There's quality in the Lincoln and the Brocklesby looks competitive with 13 runners, which is a good turnout, but the Spring Mile is down on numbers."

There is £45,000 in prize-money on offer for the Spring Mile, matching last year's purse and pre-pandemic levels, but the quality towards the top of the weights is notably down.

General Lee: heads the weights for the Spring Mile, consolation race to the LincolnCredit: Edward Whitaker

The average rating of the topweight in the last ten runnings is 94 but the Paul and Oliver Cole-trained General Lee heads this year's field on an official mark of 85.

That is an after-effect of the Lincoln declarations, in which the 86-rated Broken Spear was the final horse to make the cut, one year on from the four horses sharing bottom weight being rated 10lb higher.

Temperatures reached 19C at Doncaster on Thursday and the ground, described as good to soft, soft in places, is expected to continue to dry out up to raceday.

Barker added: "It's starting to dry and we'll see where we end up on Saturday, but hopefully we will be around the good ground mark by racing. It didn't dry back much yesterday and we had a heavy dew this morning, but it's only going to dry back in these conditions.

"We're due these daytime temperatures through to Saturday. We're expecting a nice, big crowd and there's still plenty of availability. The weather looks glorious so there's no excuse for people not to come along and have a good day."

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