Qld summer carnival needs revamp
The Queensland summer racing carnival is the carnival that isn’t.
There is much about racing to shout from the rooftops in the Sunshine State, including the fabulous winter carnival and some of the innovations and prizemoney hikes that have lifted the state out of the racing doldrums.
But outside of the rich Gold Coast Magic Millions day and a couple of upcoming lead-up Saturdays, the summer carnival has been lacking snap, crackle and pop.
The summer carnival, which started on November 18 when it wasn’t even summer, suffers from being too long and desperately needs to become punchier.
There haven’t been many interstate invaders to spike national interest, the two-year-old fields have been woeful in size – and often in quality – and it hasn’t felt like a carnival on most Saturdays.
As one racing official said to me recently, it’s not a carnival and so we shouldn’t embarrass ourselves by calling it such.
Of course, the carnival has been a victim of its timing because good horses can’t race all year at a merrygo-round of carnivals and most of the elite ones are now chilling out in paddocks.
Then there is next month’s Magic Millions day, which has an extraordinary $14.25m in prizemoney spread across 11 races. It is so successful it does what it wants and puts everything else in the shade.
The dwindling of two-year-old fields in summer is a direct result of the introduction of a pair of $500,000 Debut races on Magic Millions day.
As the name suggests, the Debut races are for first starters and have caused many trainers to hold onto their horses for those rich races rather than racing them in traditional Magic Millions lead-ups.
The situation has caused much consternation, with the Brisbane Racing Club insisting the Debut races should be moved to the start of the carnival to stop trainers from holding back horses for the race.
But the “carnival” situation doesn’t need wholesale and drastic change. Just some clever thinking from officials, such as Racing Queensland chief executive Jason Scott who has a much smarter racing brain than most.
As we’ve seen with cricket’s Big Bash, less can often be more in sport.
The summer carnival has no Group 1s but it has traditionally had some good racing.
But the time has arrived for it to be condensed into an “event style” format, which officials can really promote and which gives punters bang for their buck.