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BELOW is the text of the column,
written by Queensland Racing chairman, Bob Bentley,
which appears the May edition of the Queensland Racing
Calendar.
IT’S that time of year again when we celebrate
the Queensland Winter Racing Carnival. We call it ‘winter,’ but
to be precise the big days at Doomben and the Gold
Coast are actually run in the late ‘autumn’.
That doesn’t really matter – it’s
the season for feature racing in the North – and
provided the weather Gods are kind to us, we look
forward to great prizemoney attracting the best horses,
big crowds and strong betting.
The Brisbane Turf Club could not have wished for
a better drawcard to launch the carnival this month
than the presence of boom Toowoomba filly, Regimental
Gal.
Connections have even turned their back on the prize
of a trip to England to race the Shaun Dwyer-trained
three-year-old locally because they want the ‘Gal’ to
strut her stuff on home turf.
Regimental Gal took out the prestigious Silver Arrow
Sprint Challenge with her second Group One win in
Melbourne in the Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley
in late March. She had earlier won the Lightning
Stakes.
Dwyer plans to run Regimental Gal in the Group Two
BTC Cup at Doomben on May 1st in preparation for
her main carnival mission, the $500,000 Doomben 10,000.
Officials at Doomben – I had better call it
NCF Doomben after the wonderful naming rights sponsorship
deal clinched recently with Northern City Finance – could
not have scripted a better box office attraction.
There also promises to be more than a touch of trans-Tasman
rivalry in the opening stanza of the carnival with
the star New Zealand three-year-old, King’s
Chapel, likely to steer a similar course to Regimental
Gal.
Kiwi trainer, Mark Walker, no stranger to Queensland
racing followers after his success last year with
Distinctly Secret, thinks King’s Chapel will
develop into a Cox Plate horse in the spring.
And that clash is set to occur before we even arrive
at the ‘jewel in the crown’ of our winter
carnival racing in Queensland – the Stradbroke-Brisbane
Cup weekend in June.
During this year’s carnival – which
starts with the Richmond Grove Race Day at Doomben
on May 1st and concludes after the Tattersall’s
Mile race meeting at Eagle Farm on July 24th – a
record $13.5 million in stakes will be distributed.
The major focus will be on Queensland during the
little over three weeks from May 22nd to June 14th
when our eight Group One classics are run. This involves
the Doomben double and the ‘big three’ meetings
at Eagle Farm.
We were delighted to learn last year that the carnival
attracted the strongest off-course betting turnover
on the TAB in Queensland for almost a decade.
The TAB compares figures from the start of the carnival
through to Brisbane Cup day. During that period last
year, off-course punters in Queensland bet close
to $33 million on carnival racing.
Chief Executive, Dick McIlwain, was delighted to
confirm that this turnover was as good as the TAB
had held since the ‘boom’ years of the
early 90s.
The Doomben Cup and Queensland Oaks day holds last
year of $3.9 million and $4.1 million respectively
were the best ever. Oaks day was the first time a
Queensland race meeting had exceeded $4 million,
with the exception of Stradbroke day.
Mr McIlwain attributed the increased off-course
betting response to fine weather and a lot of ‘name’ horses
contesting the big carnival races. He praised our
efforts of focussing promotion on the Group One period
of racing.
Queensland Racing remains committed to raising the
standard of our racing and enjoyment during the carnival.
The critical changes that we have made this year
has been deliberately designed to target Black Type
racing.
We are determined to make it impossible for anyone
to ignore our Black Type claims by especially targeting
fillies and mares racing in our year round programming.
The inaugural Queensland Racing Sky Channel Gold
Series of twelve $100,000 feature events at Eagle
Farm and Doomben has already been well received.
Nine of those races are for fillies and mares.
There is a logical sequence to the programming of
two fillies and mares features in the Sky Gold Series
at Doomben on April 24th and Eagle Farm on May 8th.
The $100,000 race on May 8th (Queensland Guineas
day) is a fortnight before the repositioned Glenlogan
Park Stakes (a Listed event for Fillies and Mares)
at Doomben on 10,000 day (May 22nd).
As you can see, dates have been strategically allocated
to provide compatibility with existing features and
carnival classics and to build Black Type claims
through maximum exposure.
Added to this was the decision earlier this year
by Queensland Racing to boost prizemoney for the
Group 3 Winter Stakes at Tattersall’s Race
Club meeting in June from $175,000 to $400,000.
This massive increase to what is regarded as the
pre-eminent fillies and mares classic of the carnival
puts the Australian industry on notice that we are
deadly serious about our Group and Listed racing.
At $400,000, the Queensland Racing Winter Stakes,
feature event on Tattersall’s Cup day at Eagle
Farm on June 26th, now has Group One written all
over it.
Owners and trainers can treat this as the ‘grand
final’ for horses of the fairer sex, particularly
those that have tasted success in the fillies and
mares races that form a core component of the Sky
Gold Series.
An important programming change approved for the
carnival this year will see the Ipswich Cup meeting
move forward to June 19th, the Saturday following
Stradbroke-Brisbane Cup weekend.
This meeting last year attracted a bigger crowd
than any other carnival feature day – well
in excess of 20,000 and officials have taken steps
to grow ‘tent city’ on the infield even
further.
Cup day at Ipswich has always been one of my favourites – after
all I was chairman of the club there for several
years – and I again look forward to attending.
Another highlight this year will see the $50,000
Mitsubishi Ipswich Dash run at the Ipswich Cup meeting.
This is part of the Country Series and the involvement
of a valuable new sponsor in Mitsubishi Motors Australia.
It would be remiss of me, when talking about any
carnival success story, not to mention the Prime
Minister’s Cup meeting at the Gold Coast in
May and the two-day Caloundra City Cup carnival at
the Sunshine Coast in early July.
The decision to grant ‘metropolitan’ Saturdays
to the Gold and Sunshine Coast Turf Clubs for their
major carnival meetings of the year attracted some
controversy and criticism.
But the success and acceptance of these big days – both
from patrons and punters – proves that this
was the right move. Both clubs have not rested on
their laurels and these two meetings continue to
grow in popularity.
In conclusion, let me say that the Board of Queensland
Racing is mindful of the quality of our racetrack
facilities, which are highlighted when there are
many visitors during the carnival.
We are continuing to pursue major redevelopment
plans for metropolitan racing. This is a modern world
and we need to provide the very best facilities if
we are to be competitive for the entertainment dollar.
The Board remains confident that when the industry
and its stakeholders closely examine the options
available they will realise it is critical for the
industry to move forward.
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