Damning numbers suggest Newmarket is losing its attraction for the racing world

As the curtain came down on Newmarket's season last Saturday with three each-way places available in all but one of the eight races on offer, it struck me we hadn't seen anything like enough of those at the town's tracks in 2021.

Having subsequently examined the number of runners at the course, I discovered that, as bad as field sizes have been on the Flat this year, the trend at Newmarket's Rowley Mile and July courses is heading in an even more pronounced downward direction.

Newmarket's two tracks have long attracted fields bigger than the overall average. Back in 2001, for instance, there were 246 races run there, attracting 3,336 runners at an average of 13.7, against an average of 12 on the Flat overall. Ten years on, as overall Flat field sizes had dropped to 9.5, Newmarket's numbers were still holding up fairly well at 10.7. And even five years ago, with the overall average down at 9.2, Newmarket was just about holding its own at 9.3.