Ebor refund plan

9:50am Wednesday 27th August 2008

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YORK Racecourse is working on giving refunds to its annual badge holders after the cancellation of the entire Ebor Festival.

Knavesmire staff are also processing refunds to punters who bought tickets for the four-day festival, the principal event in York’s racing calendar.

In a letter to badge holders, William Derby, chief executive and clerk of the course, apologised to anyone who had had a thwarted journey to York when the bad weather struck.

“I know how eagerly you will have been anticipating this week and can only share your frustration that all our plans have been sent awry,” he wrote.

“We will be setting out the position with regard to a pro-rata refund of your 2008 annual subscription in the coming weeks and months.

“I appreciate this will not make up for the disappointment felt by all.”

Currently a full, single County Stand badge for the year costs £305 while a joint badge – which may be for a couple – costs £530. A junior badge for people aged between 16 and 25 costs £85.

Mr Derby told The Press that those who bought advance tickets for the race meeting would also receive refunds.

He said he did not want to discuss the refund details before punters had been informed.

“We want to have dialogue with our customers directly,” he said. “We are desperately disappointed by last week.

“I know people will have been looking forward to the festival and we will be writing to them with our plans.

“We are in the process of processing the refunds as we speak and we are working hard through them.

“Not everyone that has bought a ticket has got their money back yet but we hope to have that process done by the end of next week.”

In his letter to badge holders, Mr Derby also outlined the reasons behind why the racing was cancelled. He said the racing surface was heavy on the Monday, but there were no concerns for the start of the festival until a large amount of rain fell early on Tuesday morning.

Wednesday’s meeting was then cancelled because of heavy rain at Tuesday lunchtime and then officials then started to explore the possibility of transferring feature races from Tuesday and Wednesday to the Thursday and Friday. But because the rain continued, it was decided that there was no option but to cancel the last two days of racing.

He wrote: “I can only assure you we left no stone unturned in our efforts to try to get racing on, but without success.”