The annual Manangatang Cup race meeting isn’t just back on track, it is well on its way to becoming the destination event on the Victorian calendar, for which the club has been planning for years.
Manangatang Racing Club secretary Adam McNicol says the first meeting since 2019 was a spectacular success, with 2958 people coming through the gates.
Even better, he says the 2022 cup meeting was a 100 per cent Mallee affair – and the crowd loved it.
“I reckon this was the best meeting we have run and has taken us a long way to where we want to be with this as a major event for the whole Mallee,” McNicol said.
“It couldn’t have gone any better – the weather was perfect, the track was perfect and all the hard work and planning of so many local volunteers paid off big time.
“A highlight was getting Farmer Wants a Wife’s Will Simpson along for the day. This genuine Mallee boy has become a national heartthrob and he didn’t just turn up to be seen, he won the men’s footrace before the racing started, judged the fashions in the field and must have been in 1000 photos with fans – and all with a smile on his face.
“What a fantastic Mallee ambassador.”
McNicol said the Mallee theme continued after the races with the Jeff Tynan Band rocking a packed-out Big Shed well into the night.
“Jeff is originally an Underbool boy, even his sound crew were Mallee born and bred,” he said.
The foot races before the horses also saw 2019 champion Chelsea Kilmartin back to defend her title and she literally ran away with the women’s event to go back-to-back despite two years without competition because of Covid.
And keeping things mega local, the $30,000 Nutrien Ag Solutions Manangatang Cup went to the locally owned Bannerton, named for Bannerton about 20 minutes up the road where its owners – Robinvale’s Tony Natale and Charlie Camera – have property.
Completing one of the most popular cup wins seen at Manangatang, Bannerton’s trainer is Swan Hill’s Austy Coffey, who finally took out the cup after finishing second on five frustrating occasions.
