Officials Upbeat Despite Crowd Drop Ascot were hit by a huge drop in attendance on the opening day of the Royal meeting, with the crowd down almost 15,000 on 2006.Despite a warm and dry day, only 40,191 racegoers passed through the turnstiles compared to 54,838 on the corresponding afternoon 12 months ago.However, officials at the track ? which has just undergone a £10million alteration programme following last year´s opening of the new grandstand ? claim the attendance level was in line with projections.Head of public relations Nick Smith said: 'We predicted a crowd of around 40,000 for today.'This figure is down on what we would normally expect, although we are relaxed about this as we knew that everything was not 100% last year and the opening day of Royal Ascot 2006 after the redevelopment was always going to attract a bumper crowd.'Looking to the future, the feedback we have received today from members in the Royal Enclosure as well as those in General Admission and the Silver Ring has been almost exclusively positive.'We are very optimistic that we will return to a normal attendance figure (around 47,000) for the opening day in 2008.'(C) PA Sport
