More meets healthy sign
TWO race meetings on Good Friday and nine additional harness meetings are just two significant changes to next season’s Tasmanian race dates recently released by Tasracing.
Thoroughbred racing boasts 72 meetings, including seven on King Island, which is the same as last season.
The Tasmanian Turf Club in Launceston will host 21 night meetings but while the night season starts at the same time as last year, on October 3, it will be extended through March to conclude on April 24.
The Good Friday thoroughbred meeting will be held in Launceston on April 19 while Hobart’s Tasmanian Pacing Club will host a harness meeting that night on what has traditionally been a non-racing day in this state.
The success of the thoroughbred meetings held in Western Australia for the past two seasons, which returned record turnover, has convinced Tasmania and other jurisdictions to follow the move.
Tasmania’s harness code has benefited from stakes increases this season so seven additional meetings should ensure even greater growth for the code.
There will be 162 greyhound meetings shared between Launceston, Devonport and Hobart and they will fall on the same days as in previous years — Monday nights, Tuesdays and Thursday nights.
“The 2018-19 race dates have been approved by Sky Channel and finalised after consultation with all Tasmanian race clubs,” said Tasracing chief executive Vaughn Lynch.
“The 2019 Hobart Cup [thoroughbreds] will be held on February 10 and the Launceston Cup will be held in its traditional timeslot of the last Wednesday in February [February 27].”
Another major change has been the shift of the Tasmania Pacing Cup, which is one of the feature meetings of the season.
“The Tasmania Cup, which was held in late December, has been moved to March 16 which is a Saturday night meeting.”
This season boasted only 24 Friday night harness meetings but next season it has almost doubled.
“Friday nights have proven popular with both clubs and industry participants so we have scheduled 47 Friday night harness meetings and that should prove to be a good outcome for the harness code in Tasmania.”
Of those 47 Friday night meetings, the Launceston Pacing Club will host 19 with the club’s overall allocation of 27 to include six Sunday night fixtures and two on Saturdays.
The new race season for thoroughbreds starts on August 1 and the harness season a month later while the greyhound season runs as a calendar year (January-December).