HAWKESBURY Race Club will host its final meeting of the year on Sunday and wind up what the CEO says has been a busy and exciting time for the club.
Create a free account to read this article
or signup to continue reading
Sunday’s pre-Christmas meeting will be the final meeting before the club goes into a summer hiatus.
It will be the final meeting of a trio of successive weekend meetings for the leading provincial race club.
As is the case annually, the club goes into a six week hiatus to avoid the hottest part of the summer months and also to enable important course renovation work to take place unhindered.
Hawkesbury Race Club CEO Greg Rudolph said he was delighted with the way the course proper has handled the busy spring and early summer period of racing.
“It has stood up really well, especially considering the succession of meetings we have staged and the lack of any decent rain,” he said.
"Our course manager Jeff Jaynes has tweaked a few things with his track preparation in the last few months and we are now seeing the dividends", he added.
Rudolph said the club was reviewing the two twilight meetings it held in November, to see if it was worth continuing.
Hawkesbury had later starts at its meetings on Friday, November 18 and Saturday, November 26; the latter being one of the club’s only three Saturdays each year.
Those two dates followed the club’s Ladies’ Cup meeting on Thursday, November 3.
“Our turnover was healthy on the Friday twilight meeting, but the attendance figures weren’t great," said Rudolph.
“Yet the following Saturday we had excellent turnover and our attendance was boosted by people taking advantage of a later start to the race meeting.”
Rudolph said the Saturday attendance was because of a clash of meetings with Rosehill Gardens on the same day.
“We have begun consultation with the Australian Turf Club and Racing NSW about future race date planning,” he said.
“But it may not be possible to avert it given the spring carnival program, coupled also with Randwick track renovations.
“In any case, we will review the two twilight meetings and make a decision as to whether we continue with them at a similar time next year.
"The industry will benefit from a remodelled Kensington track, which has also had implications for race programming this season.”
Rudolph said the biggest of that programming was the club’s stand-alone Saturday meeting, which was closing in and the planning was already well underway for it.
The meeting will be held on April 29, 2017.