Sadly, that won’t happen in the current ‘cloud of secrecy’ environment that hangs over integrity of racing in Queensland. TABS & SKY HAVE TOO MUCH INFLUENCE ON PROGRAMMING GREED seems to govern what happens in race programming these days with the TABs and SKY Channel arguably having more influence on the decision-making than the stakeholders. No sooner had the trend to more night racing occurred in Victoria when officialdom signalled a growing interest in extra selected Sunday fixtures in the city. Leading jockeys and trainers immediately raised concerns declaring that back-to-back Sunday city cards being run in the Spring this year were sufficient having regard for the welfare of participants. “You’ve got to have the shop open when the customers want to buy,” RV CEO Andrew Jones said.Ĭhampion jockey Damien Oliver responded: “We’ve got that much night racing now … it's 24/7 with days, nights, already enough Sunday (country) racing.” Racing Victoria, extremely aware of the competition for the sporting and leisure dollar from various sporting codes, have refused to rule out more selected Sunday meetings if turnover on the two being conducted this month indicate that is what punters want. It would seem that – in Victoria in particular – something has to give. If they want to continue with a sprinkling of metropolitan venues on midweek dates during the year then Sunday has to be largely restricted to the present successful concept of prime and secondary provincial meetings. Night racing is booming with the number of tracks installing lights increasing. Queensland seems happy to jump aboard with the Sunshine Coast linking with Melbourne venues like the Valley and Cranbourne but Sydney is dragging the chain with only a limited number of night meetings at Canterbury at this stage.Īll that it lacks is a Summer Night Circuit of the three eastern states. SHOULD SOME QUEENSLAND COUNTRY CUPS BE RUN ON A SUNDAY? The new night racing season will be launched this Friday with the AFL Grand Final-eve meeting at Moonee Valley featuring the Moir Stakes and the Sunshine Coast racing in conjunction. TWO raceless Saturdays in a row might give the Brisbane tracks a rest but have again raised the question whether some of the major Cup meetings outside the metropolitan area should be run on a Sunday. Punters don’t have a problem with more Gold Coast primary TAB Saturday meetings – there is a strong feeling that the primary Saturday calendar in Queensland should see the majority run at Eagle Farm and Doomben with more dates allocated to the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.
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