By Russell Bennett
THE Cranbourne Cup won’t be rescheduled this spring after the gusty winds that tore through the state on Sunday ripped the hearts out of organisers who were forced to cancel the $300,000 race.
Sunday’s 10-race meeting was postponed after just the first race on the card, with the strong winds – which were only predicted to get worse – deemed to have posed a health and safety risk.
Not only was Cranbourne’s showpiece race postponed, but so too was the $100,000 Apache Cat Classic.
After consulting with the Cranbourne Turf Club, Racing Victoria determined that there was no suitable date remaining this Spring Racing Carnival to hold Casey’s signature race.
There’s now a distinct possibility that the race could be moved to Friday night, 21 April next year – the date of the turf club’s official 150th anniversary.
The race would then return to its traditional spring timeslot in the 2017-’18 racing calendar.
“We’ll consider the possibility of running the Cranbourne Cup, as well as the Apache Cat Classic, in the autumn next year and ensure either way that some of the prizemoney from (the) meeting is used to bolster the club’s 150th anniversary race meeting on 21 April,” said Racing Victoria operations manager Paul Bloodworth.
Cranbourne Turf Club chief executive Neil Bainbridge described the situation on Sunday as “devastating”, but added that if the Cup was moved to autumn, the club would try and hold it under lights “as a good point of difference”.
“A lot of work goes into these days – it’s probably nine months of the year of planning and execution, and to think we had such a beautiful day yesterday (Saturday),” he said.
“Today, the wind just got to a level where the jockeys and stewards thought it was not safe to continue in those conditions. It’s really frustrating.”
Mr Bainbridge said the jockeys raised some initial concerns about the strong winds on Sunday, which led to the stewards ultimately deciding that the meeting needed to be postponed.
“I think there’d be a lot of disappointed people, as we are,” he said.
“But, like us, people are realists and realise that those winds are pretty strong, and I think everyone understands that the decision was made and the reasons why it was made.
“I think, generally, people understand that safety has to come first. They understand the predicament the club is in and we thank them for their support and we’ll do our utmost to put on another Cranbourne Cup and another great day for our patrons.”
Mr Bainbridge said he’d never been involved in a race meeting that had to be called off due to strong winds.
“It’s just really frustrating that it happened on Cranbourne Cup day,” he said.
“It’s very disappointing and obviously it’ll be quite a costly exercise for the club. This is the club’s key meeting, which underwrites a lot of the financial performance for the year, and this year we’ll just need to work a little bit harder – which we’ll do – but obviously financially this is a significant hole.”
