The postponement of yesterday’s Armidale’s meeting and abandonment of coastal meetings led to an influx of extra nominations for Friday’s Tamworth Jockey Club meeting and Saturday’s Bingara Cup meeting.

Tamworth received a staggering 192 nominations for Friday’s meeting, with a benchmark 55 1400m race topping 36 nominations.

Saturday’s Bingara Jockey Club Bingara Cup meeting had 78 nominations for just five races.

The $9000 Bingara Cup (1300m) received 20 nominations alone.

In some years that Cup nomination list would have equalled two thirds of the whole Cup day list.

Bingara Jockey Club president Sinclair Munro said nominations had been “terrific”.

“Last year we had about 56 for the meeting, so we’ve gone up 22. 

“But the prizemoney has gone up too, from $21,000 to $33,000.

“The Cup was worth $5000 last year. This year it’s $9000 and all the other other races have gone from $4000 to $6000.

“Having 20 nominated for the Cup is terrific. There’s a bit of quality there as well.”

Tamworth Jockey Club’s nominations read like a Cup day list, quantity-wise.

Tamworth operations manager Victoria Toy was delighted with the entries.

“192 nominations is pretty good,”  Toy said.

“It should be a good meeting, particularly on a Friday.”

She said yesterday’s rain would help the track.

“It’s supposed to be clearing by tonight. If it does it will be a good track.”

The Bingara track also received plenty of rain but  Munro is confident some drying weather will have it ready to race.

“We missed last year because of the floods,” he recalled.

“And we have had between 80mm and 100mm in the district, but with drying weather and sun we should be right. 

“The track looks good too – it  has a very good grass coverage.

“We’re expecting a good crowd too. There’s a lot of interest in this year’s meeting.”