BUMPER ATTENDANCES AT CORAL SCOTTISH GRAND NATIONAL FESTIVAL
RECORD CROWDS FLOCK TO CORAL SCOTTISH GRAND NATIONAL
ALMOST 22,000 people flocked to Ayr
Racecourse over the weekend for the Coral Scottish Grand National
Festival.
The two day crowd was the largest for more than 25 years with 5,500 in attendance on Friday and more than 17,200 on Saturday.
The new £4.5 million Grandstand Bar opened for the first time and was voted a great success. One racegoer, Alan Clarke from Ayr said : "The facilities here have improved greatly. The new bar is a tremendous asset and there was very little queuing over the two days."
More than 1500 stayed on to watch The Saw Doctors on Friday night and the Irish rockers played a set that lasted almost two hours.
It certainly was thirsty work over the weekend and almost 50,000 pints of beer were sold and bar taking were up on the same weekend last year.
A total of 800 staff were on hand to make sure everything ran smoothly and a huge fleet of taxis ferried punters into Ayr and Prestwick and other surrounding towns and villages after racing ensuring a huge spin off for the local community.
Racecourse spokesman Iain Ferguson said : "The weekend was a great success and my phone has been red hot with people congratulating the team at Ayr on a job well done.
"In addition to the great crowd we also had increased media interest and had the Channel 4 racing team here, two BBC Television crews, a team from Scottish Television, BBC radio news and sports reporters, local radio journalists and an army of writers and photographers from all the leading newspapers in the UK and Ireland.
"The local economy will have had a huge spin off running well
into seven figures with local hotels, bars, restaurants, taxi
operators and shops all benefiting."
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FIRST FLAT MEETING OF SEASON ON MAY 21
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AYR Racecourse holds its first flat
meeting of the year on Wednesday May 21 with a seven race card
coming under starter's orders at 2.00 pm.
First race is the
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RACECOURSE PLANS APPROVED BY SOUTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL
COUNCIL APPROVES RACECOURSE PLANS[IMG: 499 height=
"165" alt="ARTIST"
width="220" align="right" border="0" name="499"]
AMBITIOUS plans to turn Ayr
Racecourse into not only one of the top racecourses
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NEW SPONSOR CONFIRMED FOR AYR GOLD CUP
JOHN SMITH'S TO SPONSOR AYR GOLD CUP[IMG: 498 height="220" alt="AYR GOLD CUP" width=
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JOHN Smith's is to sponsor the
Ayr Gold Cup Festival, Scotland&
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TOP CORAL NATIONAL CROWD FOR 30 YEARS
CORAL SCOTTISH GRAND NATIONAL ATTENDANCES HIT RECORD HIGH
OFFICIAL attendance figures for the
2008 Coral Scottish Grand National Festival at Ayr Racecourse were
the highest for more than 30 years.[IMG
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