Belle Vue boss Mick Hardy is confident that the track’s SKY meeting planned for December will still go ahead despite there currently being no sponsor for either the Oaks of the Laurels.
He said: “We are still to confirm an Oaks sponsor though I am talking to a couple of groups. We were a little bit unlucky because we expecting RPGTV to sponsor as they did last year, but then we had to withdraw from our involvement with them. They asked me not to make an immediate announcement, so that prevented me advertising for a sponsor.
‘There is currently no Laurels backer either, though that is a smaller event and more easily remedied. At far as the Scurry is concerned, I am due to speak to BAPPS shortly, but as far as I am aware, the event goes ahead”
Meanwhile, the anticipated changes in the racing office have now taken place with Mick Smith returning from retirement to assist the new RM Scott Ellis.
Hardy said: “Dave Brayshaw left a couple of weeks ago and we decided to promote Scott. Although he has been in the office for a while, he didn’t have that much experience as an assistant and that was why it was so good to have Mick back. He originally said, ‘I can only do a few hours part time or the wife will kill me’, though those hours have crept up a bit.”
