York hopes to trial racegoers at Ebor meeting after 'positive' news

York chief executive William Derby hopes racegoers could be allowed at next month's Ebor festival, three weeks after Goodwood's trial run on August 1.

The final day of the Glorious meeting will be allowed 5,000 spectators, as one of three pilot events announced by the government as a staging post towards the possible return of public admission to sporting contests on October 1.

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The Ebor meeting starts on August 19 and Derby said: "The Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor festival is our flagship meeting, we would be keen to have racegoers and we haven't given up hope of that.

"It was really positive news from the government, both about sport and Goodwood specifically. They talked about this being the start of a process. There are 19 days between August 1 and the start of the Ebor festival and we've worked closely with Goodwood and the BHA on the DCMS [The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] 'safety at sport grounds' guidelines. We are working on our plans about how it would work at York with a crowd under the new protocols.

"It's good racing has been announced as one of the three sports to be trialled. Everyone at DCMS appreciates that racing is not a stadium sport, it's a parkland sport and that's a very clear difference."

Derby believes that the Ebor meeting, a four-day event at a track near a major city and transport, offers a significant difference to the Goodwood trial, which the government may be keen to test out.

William Derby: 'I'm sure the government would be interested in testing with a pilot having learned from Goodwood'Credit: Lewis Porteous

"Racedays are very different," he said. "I'm sure the government would be interested in testing with a pilot having learned from Goodwood and we offer a lot of different elements that we could bring to bear.

"We're in the hands of the government and I suspect they may see how the test events go so we might not have a huge amount of lead-in time, so for that reason we are preparing."

Potential spectators have already been calling York, keen to find out whether they will be able to come racing next month.

Derby said: "I had a chap who never misses the Juddmonte International, or previously the Benson and Hedges, and this would be the 49th he had seen and he wanted to know if he could be here – I had to say watch this space!"

But Racecourse Association chief executive David Armstrong stressed that the prospect of other pilot events is uncertain.

"At the moment the government has three pilots," he said on ITV. "They have said there may be future pilots at a later date but that is still very much up in the air."

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