TAMWORTH Harness Racing Club will be able to showcase its pacing meetings at a more reasonable and available hour for its local pacing owners, supporters and spectators.
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Tamworth chairman Terry Browne has managed to convince Harness Racing NSW to run a double digit number of Sunday meetings over the next 12 months.
It’s a pleasing change for a club which has had to race the majority of its meetings of a Thursday afternoon for the past 12 months.
Of the 24 meetings to be raced at Tamworth Paceway from July 7, Browne said 13 would be on a Sunday, 12 of them a twilight meeting and the 13th (October 2) a day meeting.
The club also has three Saturday night meetings (October 29, December 24 and June 24, 2017).
Just four Thursday meetings remain, with two Wednesday meetings (twilight and night) and a Friday night meeting for the $25,000 Pryde’s EasiFeed Golden Guitar Final meeting on January 8 next year.
“Its fantastic for the club,” Browne said.
“Fantastic for us and also for HRNSW and the sport.
“Owners can now see their horses race (in the flesh).
“They’ve only been able to watch on Sky over the past 12 months or so as we’ve raced mainly Thursday afternoons.
“They can’t get to the meetings because they’ve had to work.
“Now we will be able to get more people to the trots to watch their horse or have a bet.
“It’s huge for us.
“The dozen or so Sundays will be great for us – help us get people back involved in pacing.
“But the HRNSW saw the commonsense in it all.
“It’s going to be pretty exciting times for us with the new track.”
That would have framed a large reason why to give the Tamworth club such owner and spectator-friendly race times too.
Building a new multi-million dollar facility would be rather stupid if the same Thursday timeslot was kept where a largely barren course was on show for a TAB meeting.
The new time slots offer the Tamworth club the chance to redevelop a spectator base and the track and complex the chance to host larger groups of sponsors and supporters.
Tamworth Harness Racing Club stages another Thursday afternoon meeting this week followed by June 16 and 30 Thursday TAB meetings with two more in July and another on August 8 before the first Sunday twilight meeting rolls up on Sunday, August 14.