11 Jun 2020 08:49PMLONDON: Royal Ascot will take a big financial hit when it goes ahead behind closed doors next week but racing director Nick Smith says it is important to put on a show.
The 36 races will have total prize money of £3,680,000 compared with the figure of more than £8 million announced in December.Advertisement"We are here to run race meetings and if you are not going to run Royal Ascot then you should not be hosting racing."Two of Smith's colleagues went to Newmarket last week for the 1000 Guineas to learn from that experience, with that event also held behind closed doors."We have bigger races with larger fields," he said.
He admitted, though, that the mood prior to the British government's decision to allow racing to start again this month was downbeat.