Wagga Wagga's William Farrer Hotel is again Kosciuszko bound, drawing two slots the $1.3 million race
For the third time in four years, David Barnhill’s Super Punters Club (SPC) have scored themselves a ticket to country racing’s greatest spectacle – The Kosciuszko.
If owning one slot in the race wasn’t exciting enough, you can only imagine how ecstatic Barnhill and the 600+ members of the SPC were when they heard their local pub called out for the second time, on Thursday morning.
The Wagga pub have become synonymous with the Racing NSW promotion, only missing the chance to have a runner in the race in 2019.
While it may seem as though the ‘Punting Gods’ have blessed the SPC, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when learning of how the $52,500 investment in tickets assisted in gaining the slots.
Although Barnhill has yet to lock down two horses to fill their slots, he is confident by Monday morning a deal will have been struck with the trainers of their chosen runners.
As for how Barnhill goes about the decision-making process with the large group of punters, there is a small committee within the SPC led by an un-named ‘Sydney-based form analyst’.
“His track record is pretty good,” Barnhill said.
“The first year (2018), our first horse got scratched and then with a limited selection of horses he found Awesome Pluck (3rd) for us.
“He threw us into Front Page last year but again we had some bad luck there with him being scratched race day.
“He likes a few of the favourites and we are in talks with several of those trainers at present.”
Despite some discussion of crowds returning to Randwick for Everest Day, Barnhill believes the ‘Farrer’ could still be the best location in Australia to watch The Kosciuszko as he and his SPC cheer on their two ‘Kosi’ hopefuls.
