KERANG Turf Club track manager Greg McNeil says he won’t know until tomorrow morning if he is preparing for a seven or eight-race card.
That’s when acceptances have to be finalised and, if demand is too big, Country Racing Victoria may quickly agree to an eight-race day.
But with the 142nd running of the $30,000 cluBarham Kerang Cup already locked in for race seven, McNeil said nothing was going to change that.
He said second last, or last, the race will still be the highlight of the calendar year for local horse racing – and racing enthusiasts.
“I am very confident we will be racing on a Good 4 come Easter Saturday, and that’s smack in the middle of CRV’s preferred options,” McNeil said.
“The track is in spectacular condition. The team who planted the original grass we are still using today, 70 years down the track, really knew what they were doing.
“And it came back really well from the previous meeting on it, over the Christmas-New Year period.
“I hope I am not putting he mockers on it, but in all those 142 years we have never lost a meeting to the rain, or any other kind of weather.”
In the end it would take a global pandemic to finally bring the club’s run of meetings to its knees, with the 2020 running called off because of Victoria’s COVID controls.
McNeil said while Kerang was one of the few flood irrigated tracks around, it actually made for a more level playing field as the water was spread evenly across every part of the course.
He said this meant wherever the horses run, the track was in the same condition.
“With a 370m straight and the track this good, every horse will have a fair shake in the run home,” he said.
“The track always stands up well and we have found it is always pretty well received.”
McNeil should know, he has been behind its preparation for almost 30 years.
