Sunday cup will grow

By Brad Kingsbury
CRANBOURNE Turf Club chief executive Neil Bainbridge was happy with Sunday’s crowd of nearly 8500 and said the club’s first weekend cup meeting was the start of a new era.
Despite early showers reducing the crowd slightly, Mr Bainbridge described the day as a great base to build on for future cup days.
“It was a family orientated crowd and we want to encourage that given that 65 per cent of the population in the area is under 40 years of age,” he said. “We want to build this day up to (a crowd of) 10,000 to 12,000 over three years and this was a very good start.”
“We were a little disappointed to get the drizzle early on, but the crowd was well-behaved and for our feature day to be dominated by local horses including the cup winner, well that really put the place on the map,” he said.
Mr Bainbridge also acknowledged the support of local sponsors and the Cranbourne and Berwick chambers of commerce.
He said that that the $3.5 million off-course betting turnover matched the total for last year’s traditionally strong mid-week fixture, while the fact that on-course turnover was down by $60,000 could be attributed to the crowd’s family-orientated demographic.
He said the club was aiming for strong growth overall in the coming years.
“At the moment we host 20 meetings (per year) but we think we can increase that to 25 and make even better use of this great racing facility,” he said.
The meeting attracted leading racing identities including trainers David Hayes, Matt Ellerton and Lee Freedman, together with jockeys Damien Oliver, Glen Boss, Craig Williams and Berwick hoop Noel Callow and the club was pleased with the excellent quality of fields on the day.
The track, rated ‘dead’, was in perfect racing order and remained so throughout the day with racing officials praising both the on and off track organisation of the afternoon’s events.
Racecourse manager Rob McNab and his team were singled out for special praise.
The off-track highlights included the Fashions on the Field competition, which was sponsored by Guinot. The major prize was taken out by Emily Raye, a strapper and trackwork rider from Kilmore.