Hot on the heels of multiple Sydney premiership winning trainer Chris Waller training the trifecta in the time honoured Rowley Mile at Hawkesbury earlier this month, Hawkesbury race club is rapidly emerging as an attractive alternative to leading Sydney trainers.
Group One winning trainer James Cummings will soon join his father Anthony and brothers Michael and Richard Freedman using the leading provincial track as a second training base.
Randwick-based James Cummings, who trained in partnership with his legendary grandfather Bart (until his death 12 months ago) before branching out on his own, has horses in pre-training at Princes Farm and intends to use nearby Hawkesbury’s training facilities for fast work.
The high-profile Sydney trainers are following the lead of Rosehill-based Gerald Ryan, who successfully established a second stable at Hawkesbury some time ago.
Such new additions to the Hawkesbury training ranks are obviously welcomed the club.
With our Polytrack construction about to begin, the training facilities will be significantly enhanced and will allow greater flexibility in training programs by easing the pressure on our grass track and the club will continue to welcome the quality of trainers of this ilk, who are seeing the club and its improving facilities as an attractive alternative to a city base.
Hawkesbury takes the Saturday provincial spotlight this week with its “Spring Saturday” meeting – one of three Saturday fixtures the club stages throughout the year.
A total of 146 entries have been received for the eight-race program, with a strong mix of local trainers and visitors. Our Hawkesbury based trainers have been have enjoyed great success in recent times, both here and away from the track.
Our weekend meetings have a real buzz around them, as we have only eight a year and by aiming these meetings towards having activities for all ages, such as on-course promotions and entertainment, there is something for everyone to enjoy. Again this Saturday we will feature a race book competition with fantastic prizes on offer.
That is, of course, coupled with the start of spring racing, which becomes the focus here and then Melbourne as the Cup draws closer.
The rail for Saturday’s meeting will be 2m out from the 1300m to the winning post, and in the true position for the remainder of the track.
Greg Rudolph is the chief executive at Hawkesbury Race Club.
