By Stuart Reid

Horse racing PR member at William Hill, Rupert Adams, has branded the cancellation of last weekends Ayr gold cup as “disappointing”.

“The Cancellation of the Ayr Gold Cup was extremely disappointing. However, in our game you expect that maybe 1 in 20 or 30 might have this fate. It was bad for us that in this case, that 1 was the Gold Cup.”

The Gold Cup is one the biggest events of the year for William Hill, and the town of Ayr, so its cancellation saw a massive drop in revenue for the bookmakers as punters weren’t able to have a flutter on it.

“The Ayr Gold cup is in the top 2 or 3 sponsorship events we have each year and, the race itself, has a turnover of £1 million so it’s clear that it is a disappointment.”

William Hill, however, expects a slight compensation for the money lost, with an expected bigger turnout and their next race.

“We [William Hill] expect a bigger turnout at the next race and we will hopefully make up for some of the losses at that event.”