New “Champions Weekend” to showcase Flat racing

There may be no Frankel this year, but racing fans are still in for a treat as six Group One races will be run in just two days, as part of a new “Champions Weekend”.

Future Champions Day at Newmarket will now be run on the Friday before British Champions Day at Ascot (17-18 October) to showcase Flat racing.

The weekend will be worth £4.5million. There will be six top-level Flat races, as the Fillies and Mares Stakes on British Champions Day has been upgraded to Group One this year.

Both days will be shown live on Channel 4 and races will include the QIPCO Champion Stakes on QIPCO British Champions Day and the world’s highest-rated two-year-old race, the Dubai Dewhurst Stakes, the centrepiece of Dubai Future Champions Day.

“One of the main underlying reasons for creating British Champions Day was to maintain and protect Britain’s status as a world-leading Flat racing nation,” said Rod Street, chief executive of British Champions LTD.

“We aspire to make ours the best Flat raceday in the world. The alignment with Dubai Future Champions Day in 2014 presents the perfect opportunity to build something even bigger than that.”

Sadly there’s no combined ticket deal, but for information visit: www.ascot.co.uk and www.newmarketracecourses.co.uk

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (14 March 2013)

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