CAIRNS JOCKEY CLUB HEDGES ITS BETS ON 2020 CARNIVAL

CAIRNS Jockey Club will delay a final decision on when it will hold its 2020 Cup carnival for as long as possible, after Townsville this week elected to cancel its winter carnival.

While Townsville Turf Club announced its annual winter carnival will not go ahead, it still plans to run the Townsville Cup and Cleveland Bay Handicap later this year.

Cairns’ Cannon Park ran its first meeting under the new Racing Queensland zone rules on Thursday afternoon and general manager John Cameron says the club is likely to keep its carnival dates the same, for now.

At this stage, the 2020 Cairns Cup carnival is set for the first two Saturdays in August, but with the uncertainty around the future of horse racing daily, they could soon change.

The FNQ club is likely to run two more zoned meetings, which includes having no patrons on course and only running horses based between Townsville and Cairns, before making a decision on the carnival.

“There will come a time, subject to about three race meetings here at Cairns, where we will evaluate things for us as well,” Cameron said.

“This is all new for us, the coronavirus-style racing with no people on course and racing in zones. I think we will manage this style of racing well, but it will not take much for it to turn the whole industry around.”

If the Cairns carnival were to be postponed, Cameron is hopeful all the marquee races will be run in the last few months of 2020.

He suggested a potential carnival in November, running the two race days over consecutive Sundays.

The usual north Queensland racing carnival sees the top stayers and sprinters eventually progress through Rockhampton, up to Mackay, then on to Townsville and Cairns as their carnivals move along.

Townsville club president Malcolm Petrofski said they would ‘’march on’’ with hope a high-profile series of races could be staged later in the year.

“This out-of-zone racing is likely to be around for a while so we will need to look at a different format to run our carnival,” Petrofski said.

“We could look at running a super Saturday, having all the big races on one day potentially.

“I am hoping to still run our feature races in some format later in the year.”

Cluden Park is situated in the Northern region along with Cairns’ Cannon Park.

As part of the zoning rules, trainers are allowed to race only within their regions, with Racing Queensland drawing up a new racing program to have regular weekly meetings in each zone.