Welcome

Welcome everyone to our richest night of the year with total Prize Money on offer tonight of £122,054. The Heineken UK Glasgow Stakes Race Night is always a firm favourite of our season and tonight is no different with seven great races to soak up.

We have seen so many stars who have won the Glasgow Stakes here at Hamilton Park go on to greatness including last year’s winner, Subjectivist, trained by Mark Johnston and ridden by Joe Fanning. This beautiful bay went on to win the Prix Royal-Oak, the Group 1 run at Longchamp and equivalent of the St Leger Stakes, before this year winning both the Dubai Gold Cup and the Ascot Gold Cup. What a horse! As is our custom, we have the jockey’s silks displayed on a lawn jockey adjacent to the Parade Ring, to remember the winner of the previous year’s Glasgow Stakes. How could we forget this one? Why not drop by tonight and have your photo taken beside these famous colours? Our thanks go to EBF for supporting tonight’s running of the British Stallions Studs EBF Glasgow Stakes which has a record Prize Money offering of £55,250. Mark Johnston has a great track record producing a winner in this race, but has fierce competition this evening from another winning trainer of this spectacle, Roger Varian, in the form of Title, along with four others who will make it a super race to watch tonight.

A huge thank you to Heineken UK for their support of tonight’s racing and all year as we open up again for conference and banqueting business too. The Heineken UK Scottish Stewards’ Cup is always a tremendous race and often comparisons are made between it and the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood. Tonight’s favourite is already a course winner, Mr Wagyu, who won here on 3 June on similar ground. Rathbone takes him on and will this time want to improve on his last running here when he finished second. Elsewhere on the card we have sponsorship from Contraflow Traffic Manangement and Gamma, whose support as such valued partners is very much appreciated. I hope all our sponsors and your guests have a great evening with us.

It’s certainly been a challenging summer for us all as the Government’s Covid restrictions keep changing, but I’d like to thank you all for playing your part in complying with all the rules and allowing our race days to continue safely. Sadly, recent discussions with our local Safety Advisory Group have meant we have had to change our practice for racegoers whilst you enjoy a drink or something to eat, in that we are now having to require you to take a seat to do so. I know this sounds a strange step to take, but we have done everything we can to comply with this requirement by scattering the lawns with as many tables and chairs as we can source. Please make use of them and I do hope this doesn’t detract from your enjoyment of the evening’s racing. Hopefully we will hear of some easier steps forward from the Scottish Government soon to get our racedays back closer to the norm we have enjoyed before.