GUNBOWER Racing Club has dropped a bombshell, with its committee voting unanimously to decline a race date in January to replace its washed-out cup meeting from October 1.
At an afternoon meeting on Sunday, GRC president Mick Farrant said the 20-member committee decided to preserve its October brand rather than risk a January meeting, only to see it called off because of heat restrictions.
Farrant said even though the club missed its 2020 and 2021 meetings because of Covid, the committee agreed they would prefer to wait until October next year rather than take a punt on January.
He said the last thing the committee wanted was to have a second cup meeting fail, just months apart.
“We have spent much of the past week refunding ticket money, and most of that has been handled now, with just a little bit to go,” Farrant said.
“We will also start talking to sponsors this week, after we have let Country Racing Victoria know (on Monday) of our decision,” he says.
“A lot of the sponsor money is there, and has been since 2020, so we are hopeful most people will be happy to roll it over for one more year.”
Farrant said their biggest disappointment has been for new major sponsor Moama Bowling Club.
He said MBC is such a major supporter of community events throughout the region and the club had been “incredibly excited” to get them on board as naming sponsor for the big race.
“We will be talking to them on Monday as well, but they had previously indicated they would support us through this and we thank them for that,” Farrant said.
“Everyone here feels a bit like we have let them down, they’re such a community-based operation.”
The Moama Bowling Club Gunbower Gold Cup began in 1881 and has an incredibly proud history.
It offers $30,000 in prizemoney – plus the gold cup, which had been upgraded this year, to a much bigger, more spectacular trophy, and it comes with a smaller version for both the winning trainer and jockey.
Interest in the day and presold tickets had been hitting record levels in what Farrant described as “an iconic date on the country racing calendar”.
“If we had have got a good weather run this year, we had expected walk-up numbers to soar, on top of the packages and marquees,” Farrant said.
“This is such an important event for Gunbower, after our cup day, the only meeting we hold, every community group in town gets a share of the profit and after two years without a meeting this would have been a welcome boost, but we would rather make sure we remain an October event – it will pay off in 2023 and hopefully we will be distributing our biggest profit in memory.”
