THE Balranald Racing Club has managed to avoid the cancellation of future race meets by sourcing new horse barriers to replace the current, potentially hazardous barriers.
Balranald Racing Club vice-president Billy Barker said the poor condition of the old barriers, which he estimated to be at least 40 years old, were starting to become a serious obstacle for race meets.
“We were getting to the stage where [future] races could be called off because of the barriers,” Mr Barker said.
“The barriers are out-of-date and the steel on them is starting to deteriorate, so we needed to update.”
Fortunately, $5000 in State Government funding was recently secured for the Greenham Park Ground Trust, which will go toward the acquisition of new racing barriers.
Mr Barker said thanks was also due to the Gunbower Racing Club, which donated its old barriers for use at Balranald to alleviate the need to fund newly built barriers.
“We’re quite happy that they’ve done that for us,” he said.
“They know we battle a bit and they’ve been in the same situation before.”
Mr Barker said he was unsure when the new barriers would be operational, as some repairs would be required once they were transferred to Balranald.
“There will be a bit of money involved,” he said.
“As a club we’ll do a bit of work on them ourselves and fix up what we can.”
Member for Murray Darling John Williams said the replacement barriers formed part of more than $128,000 in funding for improvements to Crown Reserves across the entire Murray-Darling Electorate.
“I am pleased to announce this funding to support these important community assets,” Mr Williams said.
“Crown reserves are wonderful assets valued by local communities and their ongoing success is vital to sports, clubs, business and tourism in regional towns.
“The local communities will benefit from this helping hand from Crown Lands.”
