Racing Centre

A significant number of forged Premier Enclosure tickets were being sold by a large number of ticket touts in the car parks over the three days of the Ritz Club July Festival at Newmarket’s July Course this week.

Seventy racegoers who had purchased them from touts yesterday (Friday) had to pay again when the forgeries were identified at the turnstiles.

With a complete sell-out in all Enclosures for next Friday’s evening fixture (20th July), at which Madness will play live on stage after the last race, the racecourse is keen to make it clear to racegoers that they should not buy tickets from the touts as they are highly likely to be wasting their money.

"The forgeries were very good and, while we had our suspicions on the first two days, by lunchtime yesterday we knew what we were looking for and all badges were carefully checked," said Newmarket Racecourses’ Managing Director, Lisa Hancock.

"It’s incredibly frustrating that the police are powerless to move touts on. Some of our security staff had to take a lot of abuse from one or two of the two of the touts. It is a highly unsatisfactory situation.

"I suspect that we had a a lot of racegoers who got in on Lanson Ladies’ Day on Thursday with forged tickets and probably on Wednesday as well, but now we know how to identify them, we will ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

"However, I’m afraid it will mean a slightly slower entrance procedure for Premier Enclosure racegoers while their badges are checked.

"Our message to all our racegoers is unequivocal - please do not buy tickets from touts as you are almost certainly throwing your money away. Next Friday, no one without a ticket should come to the racecourse as all Enclosures on 20th July are already sold out.

"We will have to review our ticketing process for next year - a return to issuing tickets as well as badges may be necessary - but in the meantime I hope more than anything that the lobbying which is taking place by the Racecourse Association and Jockey Club Racecourses to a Parliamentary Select Committee to address the problem of ticket touts meets with a positive outcome."

While Friday 20th July is a sell-out, tickets are still available for the other four remaining Newmarket Nights - 27th July (Pet Shop Boys), 3rd August (Jools Holland), 10th August (Ronan Keating) and 17th August (Wet Wet Wet).

Visit www.newmarketracecourses.co.uk or call the Newmarket Nights ticket hotline on 08707 200 201.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Lisa Hancock (Newmarket Racecourses), 07802 844 578

Alistair Haggis (Newmarket Racecourses), 07884 026 487

John Maxse (Jockey Club Racecourses), 07785 243 232

Distributed by Racenews