Highly popular Towong Cup meeting is on Saturday

The club was forced to hold a phantom meeting two years ago after a heavy deluge of rainfall on the day before the meeting left the track unsafe for racing.

Despite the setback, an estimated 2800 racegoers still attended the meeting.

Last year the club celebrated its 150th anniversary.

Unfortunately celebrations were dampened by COVID with the crowd restricted to 1400.

Club manager, Rohan Whitehead, said the club was anticipating a crowd of 2500 on the weekend.

"Hopefully after a frustrating couple of years we can go back to staging a normal cup day for people to enjoy," Whitehead said.

"We would like to think we can get a crowd of 2500.

"Pre-sales are up to 1400 are then you add another 1000 or more who just turn up on the day."

After a wetter-than-average summer, Whitehead said the track was in fantastic order.

"The track's fantastic," he said.

"It will be a Good 4 and has got a beautiful cover of grass on it.

"With all the rain that we have had, we haven't had to do much watering, we've just had to mow it.

"So it's a beautiful track at the moment, not just down the home straight but all the way around the course."

After increasing prizemoney for the cup to $40,000 last year for the 150th anniversary, this year it will revert back to $30,000.

The club has also made the feature race a Benchmark 70 Handicap compared to an Open Handicap in a bid to attract a bigger field.

It received 298 nominations for the meeting, including 39 for the cup.

"The nominations are encouraging but you don't know how big of fields you are going to attract until after acceptances," Whitehead said.

"We are hoping to get 65 runners for the seven races.

"We have also tinkered with the cup and have made it a Benchmark 70 Handicap which hopefully attracts a bigger field because it has been a bit light on for numbers recently.

ALSO IN SPORT

"It's just something the club wanted to try and we will reassess the decision again before next year."

Apart from all the racing action, there will also be a Fashions on the Field competition and plenty of different lunch options.

Free buses are available from different venues including Corryong, Jingellic, Walwa, Tintaldra and Khancoban.

A bus will also depart from Albury Railway Station at 10am (bookings required).

All buses start returning from 6pm.

There will also be live music on course with Ted Rocks playing after the last race.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: