WINTER WINDFALL
THE Queensland winter racing carnival will offer bold new levels of bang for its buck, in a bonanza for the state’s racing industry after much of last year’s carnival was wiped out due to the COVID pandemic.
This year’s winter carnival has received a prizemoney boost to $20.5m – a $2m increase from the winter
carnival two years ago. Last year, Racing Queensland all but cancelled the winter carnival with only two Group 1s run (the Stradbroke Handicap and the JJ Atkins), and for greatly reduced prizemoney.
But pre-COVID winter prizemoney levels have been restored for this year, plus the extra $2m.
Eight Group 1 races and 53 black-type events will be run in winter, with the
$5m Stradbroke Handicap day on June 12 being the highlight.
Three races of $1m or more will be run on the day with the time-honoured Stradbroke worth $1.5m, the first running of the $1.2m Group 2 Sky Racing Q22 and the $1m Group 1 JJ Atkins for two-year-olds.
The Group 1 Doomben 10,000 on May 15 has received a $200,000 boost to become a $1m race and the
Group 2 BRC Sires Produce is also now a $1m race after receiving a huge $600,000 prizemoney bump.
The Group 1 Queensland Oaks and Tattersall’s Tiara also receive a prizemoney boost to $600,000 each.
The one big headache going into the winter carnival is the controversial Eagle Farm track. All eyes will be on the surface as it stages three consecutive
Group 1 Saturdays during the winter carnival.
Racing Queensland chairman Steve Wilson said the prizemoney boosts and other enhancements were designed to “turbocharge’’ this year’s carnival. “Major events like our iconic winter racing carnival are critical to growing tourism and events in Queensland and this year’s program is expected to do just that,” he said.