Stratford Racecourse fixtures for 2017 reveal extra date

THE British Horseracing Authority has announced the 2017 fixture list, which will see 1,496 meetings held nationally, an increase of 14 on the current year, writes David Hucker.

There will be 363 days of racing in all, featuring year-round meetings on Saturday evenings, bolstering of prize money on Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays, code breaks for participants and an extra fixture on Good Friday.

Locally, Stratford will host 19 meetings, starting on Monday 13th March, the eve of the Cheltenham Festival. This is an increase of one meeting on the 2016 list and the course will now race through the autumn to Thursday 2nd November.

There is a fixture on Easter Saturday and the hugely popular back-to-back Sunday meetings in July again feature, with Ladies Day planned for the 23.

The main change to the list sees the hunter chase evening move from May into June, which will bring it closer to the end of the point-to-point season on the 18.

Always a well-attended fixture, the Friday evening hunter chase card gets even better in 2017 with a two and three-quarter mile Handicap Hunter Chase, the only one to be run in the country, and a Point- to-Point Bumper, one of three such races, the other two being at Exeter and Aintree.

Stratford fixtures 2017

Monday 13 March

Saturday 25 March

Saturday 1 April

Saturday 15 April (Easter Saturday)

Sunday 23 April

Monday 8 May

Sunday 21 May

Friday 9 June (evening)

Saturday 10 June (evening)

Tuesday 20 June

Tuesday 4 July (evening)

Sunday 16 July

Sunday 23 July

Thursday 3 August

Thursday 24th August

Saturday 9th September

Monday 2 October

Saturday 21 October

Thursday 2nd November