Horse Racing: King George Sponsor Search is on Track, Says Chief Executive

The search for a suitable new sponsor for the King George will begin as soon as the latest renewal has been run at Ascot on Saturday, and the track remains convinced that it would be better to have no sponsor than to sell its premier race to the wrong name.

"It is a big race and a big sponsor is needed," said Charles Barnett. "The last thing you want to do is to get close to a big race and then start scrabbling around, as all you're going to get is the wrong sponsor at a cheap price."

Barnett is also happy with the likely field for Saturday's race, despite the decision by the connections of Authorized, the Derby winner, to bypass the contest, and defended the level of prize money on offer.

"It's a very valuable race, the second-most valuable in the country by a long, long way," he said. "Some owners may not be concerned about prize money, but it is a question that goes to the heart of Flat racing. If you put money in and the owners don't run, well, that's difficult.

"Authorized had a hard race in the Eclipse, and you could maybe say that that was a mistake. He might have been better coming here to win the King George and then maybe going on to [the International Stakes at] York. But it's the case with any race like this that the quality will vary a little from year to year, and you never really know who is going to run."

A reservoir at Ascot overflowed onto the track during the worst of the rain on Friday morning, but Chris Stickels, the clerk of the course, said yesterday that no problems are expected with the weekend's meeting.

"The reservoir that collects all the water was already full and it couldn't cope on Friday, so it came onto the track," Stickels said, "but it was gone by Saturday morning. We had another 12mm of rain on Saturday afternoon and this morning, and the going is now good to soft on the straight track, and soft, heavy in places on the round course but it is all perfectly raceable."

A patch of ground about 10 furlongs out that caused problems at the last Ascot meeting has also been remedied.

"There were some false patches, so we did not run any races longer than a mile at the last meeting," Stickels said. "But we have done a lot of work there, and it had a rain cover on it, so it hasn't had any rain on it at all. The forecast is unsettled, and while it is unlikely to remain heavy anywhere, the strong possibility must be that the ground will be on the easy side of good."

Ron Cox's tip of the day


Gothenburg 2.15 Ayr

On what looks a trappy start to the week for punters, Gothenburg could be the one to side with. Trainer Mark Johnston's colt was just touched off on his debut over 7f by Sourire, who has since been a close runner-up in a decent handicap, and will appreciate this shorter trip after leading until late on. The yard have won this event four times in the last six years and can make it number five today.