“April saw the running of the Polytrack Provincial Championship final. Gosford was represented by Greg McFarlane’s ‘Golden Tycoon’, unfortunately Greg had to scratch his other runner ‘It’s So Obvious’ due to a fever. The race was taken out by Bernie Kelly’s ‘Bobbing’ who also took out the inaugural Provincial Sky Racing Challenge in December. 

We held our very popular ANZAC day race meet and for a change it did not rain, there were over 3,000 people on course and the day was extremely enjoyable with a great atmosphere. The fields fell away but they usually do on this day due to the quantity of racing that is on offer. Next year this meet will fall on a Saturday so we will expect an even larger crowd.

There are only three more meets left for this racing year with Saturday 25th of May, Thursday 30th of May and Thursday 13^th June. The 2019/20 programme is all but complete and hopefully we will get the final version in the next few days ready for distribution. I have been informed though that due to ANZAC day falling on a Saturday in 2020 that we will lose our May Saturday in order to ‘cap’ our Saturday quota. I opposed this decision vehemently stating that a one in seven year ‘bonus’ should be just that.

We are moving into the membership renewal period with notifications due out for the beginning of June. We are looking to increase the value of your membership with some added bonuses/offers, these are being finalised and will form part of the 2019/20 year.

On some broader racing news, since the new benchmarking penalties came into play from 1 September the average field size at Provincials races have increased 10% to 8.84 and the percentage of races that do not pay 3^rd placed dividends decreased by 37%. This is driven by the lower penalties given to Provincial winners with the maidens dropping from an average of 61.84 to 59.7. This makes running at a Provincial track more appealing than before, RNSW will aim to further reduce the average to 59.5.This decision has come after plenty of industry consultation and I have to congratulate RNSW for firstly listening and secondly acting on the issues that Provincial trainers and club’s face.

Away from racing April was a busy month for us, first up was the Aussie Night Markets and again it was cancelled due to bad weather, it seems to rain a lot on the first Friday of a month. We then held a good range of events with boxing, a wedding fair and evening functions. The boxing event was particularly impressive with a full sized ring on the front lawn and ring side dining.”