FORMER Albury mayor Henk van de Ven has called for the return of a two-day Gold Cup racing carnival to justify his ongoing support of the half-day holiday.
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Albury Racing Club ended the tradition of a Thursday-Friday carnival last year when it secured a heat of the rich country championships series and held the event on the Sunday before the Gold Cup.
The country championships heat returned to Wagga this year, but Albury retained the split days arrangement.
“We used to get people coming for a couple of days because it was worthwhile,” Cr van de Ven said.
“You had 16 or 17 great races on the Thursday-Friday and people were prepared to bring horses and stay overnight.
“Also the businesses benefited with some people even staying three days.
“The half-day holiday was all about getting not only the participation of the local community in going to the races.
“Why can’t the country championships heat be held on the Thursday when Albury hosts it?”
Club chairman Mark Cronin said the offer from Racing NSW to host the country championships last year on the basis of dropping the Thursday was an opportunity too good to refuse.
“To establish continuity so people knew what they were doing year in, year out, we decided to stay with the Sunday on the basis every second year we would get a heat of the country championships,” he said.
But ARC has no guarantee to date it will be hosting the country championships heat next year.
“It is certainly a very strong understanding at the Albury Racing Club that it will be year about (with Wagga),” Mr Cronin said.
“My personal view is if our expectations aren’t met with the country championships heat then we will be having a very strong look at whether we split it.
“Our committee, myself included, will be extremely disappointed if the country championships heat doesn’t come back to Albury next year.”
Mr Cronin said it was “almost impossible” to get additional race dates from Racing NSW.
“We are working very hard to get additional dates to improve our continuity of racing,” he said.
