UK owners and trainers have greeted the planned return of British racing at Newcastle on Monday with huge enthusiasm and 369 horses have been entered for the fixture.
The entry is around twice as large as would be expected for a meeting at Newcastle at this time of year.
The behind-closed-doors meeting will be the first in Britain since 17 March after which the sport was closed down due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has said that until further notice all races following the resumption will require final fields to be declared three days before meetings take place, which means the final fields for Newcastle will be published on Friday.
The eight-race card has attracted powerful entries from the major yards in the north, with trainer Richard Fahey having made 33 entries for the meeting.
There are also entries from champion trainer John Gosden, Sir Michael Stoute, Roger Varian, Marco Botti, Michael Bell, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills and Simon and Ed Crisford.
The 2000m maiden which closes the card has attracted a number of interesting entries including Gosden-trained Frankel filly Frankly Darling, who was second on her debut at Yarmouth last season and was recently given a favourable mention by jockey Robert Havlin.
The race has also attracted two unraced Frankel colts in Mark Johnston-trained Dream With Me, who cost 700,000 guineas a yearling, and Roger Varian-trained Valyrian Steel who fetched €600,000 at the sales.
Silvestre de Sousa, Andrea Atzeni, Jim Crowley, Danny Tudhope and Luke Morris are among the jockeys who have bookings.
BHA officials have conceded there may be frustration for connections hoping to run their horses when racing resumes but have promised to do all they can to get them back on a racecourse.
A number of Pattern races have also been saved given the number of opportunities lost to the Classic generation, which in turn have helped strengthen the weekend cards next month which are expected to be broadcast by ITV.
- Racing Post
