It's time for a finals day revamp to ensure big Newcastle card is befitting of brilliant prize-money

Did you enjoy the Good Friday action? I certainly did, but not as much as winning connections at the three Arena Racing Company tracks.

The prize-money on offer at Newcastle, Lingfield and Bath was fantastic, so much so that in the previews for the big races, the extremely healthy purses were rightfully praised by Thady Gosden, Andrew Balding and Richard Hannon, among others. That theme continued in the race reports – but was the quality of racing, and number of runners, at Newcastle’s main meeting befitting of the £1.05 million on offer?

Field sizes are down since the headline fixture moved north from Lingfield last year, but I can’t see the switch being a factor. You would go anywhere in Britain for such prize-money and Newcastle offers a fairer track with a larger capacity. However, with none of the seven races – worth between £100,000 and £200,000 – attracting full fields, maybe it is time for a change when it comes to the qualifying criteria.