Record crowds, sunshine and feature racing helped make Saturday’s Hawkesbury Guineas the best in the meeting’s history, club boss Brian Fletcher says.
The provincial club drew a record number of racegoers to the stand-alone meeting, with 15,125 people turning out to enjoy the sunshine and feature races.
Fletcher said it was the best race day in the seven-year history of the meeting which took on metropolitan status.
“I couldn’t be more happy,” Fletcher said.
“This is the best day we’ve had in seven years.
“The racing’s been great, the talent on show has been great, all the Sydney trainers supported us.”
The meeting attracted a record 173 nominations, 19 alone from Warwick Farm trainer Peter Snowden.
He won the feature Hawkesbury Guineas (1400m) with Free Wheeling, while the Todd Howlett-trained Star Of Octagonal claimed the Listed Rowley Mile (1600m).
Gai Waterhouse and premier jockey Nash Rawiller continued their autumn carnival success, taking out the Listed Darley Crown (1300m) with More Strawberries.
Fletcher said the interest shown from top Sydney trainers and the quality fields at Hawkesbury really spoke volumes for stand-alone carnivals at provincial clubs.
“It’s really cemented itself and showed people in the racing industry that we need one of these in different areas once every three or four months,” he said.
“This replaces an ordinary day at Warwick Farm where you get 2000 people and there’s no interest.
“We’ve kept the interest coming from the (autumn) carnival.”
He said there was a case for a few more stand-alone meetings being held at provincial clubs, such as Gosford later in the year.
