The Flat season is now in full swing here at Ayr Racecourse after another great renewal of our Listed Land O’Burns Stakes on Saturday June 21 and everyone here at Scotland’s premier racetrack is looking forward to 5 fantastic days of summer racing in July.
Jessie Harrington continued a long-standing tradition of Irish trainers making successful raids across the water to contest and win our biggest races and many congratulations to Jessie and jockey Keithen Kennedy for their Listed success with the Mehmas filly Saratoga Special in the prestigious Land O’Burns speed test
We’re now set to kick-off our busiest month of the year with a 2-day meeting on Sunday and Monday July 6/7 and we then compete a full month of Monday racedays with start-the-week fixtures on July 14, 21 and 28
A superb month of racing gets underway with our Family Racedays (Under-18s go free) on Sunday July 6 and Monday July 7 when the Sunday racing will include the Class 3 Summer Mile Handicap worth £16,000, followed on the Monday by a Class 4 handicap over the Gold Cup trip of 6 furlongs worth £15,000.
The following Monday card on July 14 features another hugely competitive 7-race card and on our Glasgow Fair Family Day on Monday July 21 we’ll be staging the latest running of the £30,000 Ayr Gold Cup Trial, a Class 3 event designed to provide a springboard for sprint handicappers towards our 3-day Gold Cup Festival in September.
That meeting features the £200,000 Ayr Gold Cup on the Saturday of course, but the main supporting handicap is the Ayr Silver Cup on the same day and last year’s Silver Cup was lifted by connections of the July Trial race winner Alfa Kellenic.
Craig Lidster’s filly was ridden by Tom Eaves to win the Gold Cup Trial off a mark of 85 but she was defying a new rating of 93 when William Pyle brought her home to land the Silver Cup (completing a remarkable 6-timer in the process) and there were plenty of observers who believed she might well have won the Gold Cup had she made the 25-runner cut for the big-race itself.
Silver Cup runner-up Aramram and third-placed Bergerac have both won big handicaps this season at Newbury and Hamilton to make that form look even better and this year’s Trial looks sure to throw up several candidates with Gold, Silver or even Bronze Cup aspirations come September.
Our 7-race card on Monday July 28 will be our 18th fixture of a busy 2025 here at Ayr Racecourse and we’ll still have 8 Flat meetings to come during August, September and early October (Thursday 9th) with our new 2025/26 Jumping season getting underway on Saturday November 1.
