ABOVE: Cleaning the horse in the stalls at the 2021 race day. Photo: Susanna Freymark
Richmond Valley Council is gutted Beef Week Race Day will not go ahead this year, according to a statement.
Racing NSW stewards inspected the track and determined a small section of the surface would not be in a reasonable condition to safely conduct races this Friday, May 26.
Racing NSW stewards have shifted the race meeting to Lismore.
Both the sand and grass tracks have been upgraded to best-practice standards, council said.
“Council continually liaised with the Casino Racing Club, Racing NSW and preferred suppliers to ensure the sand track met appropriate standards,” the statement said.
Council has been working on the race track. Here’s what they said they have done:
● 15,000 square metres of track has been reconstructed, with 1000 linear metres rebuilt.
● 16,000 square metres of new turf has been laid, and 8000 cubic metres of fill placed and reshaped.
● new irrigation points have been installed so the Casino Racing Club can irrigate the whole track surface.
Despite all this work Racing NSW deemed the track unsafe.
IndyNR.com has contacted Racing NSW and asked for more detail about the decision.
Racegoers can instead go to the Casino Greyhound Racing Club’s Beef Week Cup twilight meeting on Friday, May 26.
There will be a bar, canteen, TAB – the only thing missing will be horses.
The next big race day scheduled for Casino is the Gold Cup on Saturday, August 12.
There is plenty happening during Beef Week. Read the full program here.
Beef Week Cup move a financial blow, race club president says
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