HORSE racing regained its position as the second best attended sport in Britain in 2016 with just under 6m people attending meetings up and down the country.

Although the figure (5.98m) was the third highest for racing in a decade, it was still a reduction of around 150,000 on 2015 which had six more fixtures.

Over 1m people attended meetings in Yorkshire including 347,098 at York - the most popular track in the county ahead of Doncaster which attracted 253,835.

Beverley finished third in the Yorkshire rankings with 80,271 spectators.

While football remains the number one sport in terms of spectactor numbers, horse racing had dropped to third in 2015 behind rugby due to the staging of the Rugby World Cup.

Last year’s racing attendances were boosted by record crowds of 204,106 over the Christmas period (Boxing Day to New Year’s Day) an increase of 13.8 per cent on 2015.

Royal Ascot, the Cheltenham Festival, and the Epsom Derby Festival were among the top ten best attended UK sporting events in 2016.

July was an especially popular month with attendances up nine per cent at 993,517 as the sun shone on the John Smith’s Cup meeting at York, the Coral-Eclipse weekend at Sandown Park, Newmarket’s Moët & Chandon July Festival, and the Qatar Goodwood Festival.

Warwick enjoyed the biggest percentage rise in attendances with a 28 per cent growth from 32,379 to 41,604.

A customer satisfaction survey, conducted by sports marketing firm Two Circles, also placed horse racing above the average for all sports in seven out of the nine categories.

Racecourse Association Chief Executive Stephen Atkin said: “It is very pleasing to see racing return to the second-best attended sport in Britain against a backdrop of unfavourably wet weather during the first quarter and the competition of the Rio Olympic Games and Euro 2016.

Rod Street, Great British Racing Chief Executive, said: “The research reinforces the fact that racing is a brilliant day out that caters and appeals to a wide range of people and is backed up by very encouraging 2016 attendance figures.”