GRAFTON 2015 - MICHAEL BEATTIE LOOKS BACK AT THIS YEAR'S RAMORNIE / GRAFTON CUP CARNIVAL

By Michael Beattie | Monday, July 13, 2015

Michael Beattie, the CEO of Clarence River Jockey Club ... hosts of the five day Grafton Carnival, has presided over his third Carnival since taking up his current position. Here Beattie, a welcome 'Guest Blogger' on HRO gives his personal view of the 2015 edition of the Grafton’s special week of racing which once again has done the club and city proud.

From my perspective I couldn’t be happier about the way things have gone this year on a number of levels, from providing that all-important, fair racing surface to the back-up and hospitality we were able to provide for visiting trainers.

When I first applied for the job I said to the committee, the thing we have to do to get Grafton back to somewhere near where it was in its halcyon days is to go back to the future. We had to go back and do what we do well ... and part of what we did well was we were able to provide hospitality to visiting trainers.

By hospitality I don’t only mean that we were able to provide them a meal and a drink ... I’m talking about really looking after them and their interests.

This year we again worked really hard at doing just that. At one stage we didn’t think we had enough stabling. We kept moving horses around. It was like playing chess thinking about where we could move the horses.

For example Leon Davies (a winner on Cup day) didn’t think he could get to the Carnival because, at one stage, we couldn’t provide him with stables ... but we didn’t leave it there.

We were able to overcome that problem. In the end, on the night before the Ramornie Handicap we had seventy stalls at our disposal that don’t normally have racehorses in them. Of those, sixty-nine had a horse’s head sticking out of them.

The only way we could do that was with the help of the people of Grafton who gave us those stables for use.

Our own trainers too were a wonderful help. They turned horses out that weren’t going quite right. They delayed bringing horses back into work so we could book visiting trainers.

We’ve done that well over the last few years and, as a consequence, those trainers who want to support our Carnival have been able to do so.

**************************************************************************************************

We said a couple of weeks ago that we thought we were going to be able to produce a really good racing surface this year. We managed that aspect in a completely different way to last year ... where we had a lot of horses jarring up when the track got a little bit hard.

We certainly had a different weather pattern. There is no doubt about that but we did, I think, produce as good a racing surface as we could have hoped for.

I know it got a little bit firm on Cup day but that wasn’t to the point where it was affecting the performance of horses. I think the veterinary evidence is that one horse, out of all the horses that raced on Cup day, jarred up.

Over the two big days of the Carnival we had five track records. Historically, across the world on turf track racing they will tell you that you can’t run track records on hard tracks because the horses won’t stretch out.

So, yes, we are pretty happy with the track we produced
.
You must also remember the difficulty of the task that the Racecourse Manager Drew Cookson has to produce this track for five race meetings in eleven days.

I’ve said it many times, I don’t know anywhere else in Australia that attempts to do it. I don’t know anyone who tries to do it in spring or summer. We do it in the Winter ... and we do it year in and year out and that’s a credit to Drew and his staff.

**************************************************************************************************

People will always have their own opinion of how successful the Carnival is from year to year so let me put this year’s Carnival in perspective attendance-wise.

One of the things I am paranoid about, and have been in my previous role as Executive Officer of Gosford race-club and now here at the CRJC, is that there is no sense in telling lies about the number of people at your race meeting.

It’s a little bit like kissing your sister. You are just going to fool yourself.

What we do is count every person who walks onto our racecourse at every meeting we have and we are paranoid about getting that figure right.

So, this isn’t about what I think about the size of the attendance, I have the figures.

Now Ramornie Handicap day was up for the third year in succession. This year it was only marginally up by one hundred people, but it was up. Attendance for Grafton Cup day had risen for two years in a row. That figure got to just over 6000 last year. This year it was 5750, so it was down.

I don’t know yet what I put that down to but, overall, you are talking very marginal changes whether it be up or down.

I think we are at our core crowds. I say our core crowds for the Ramornie /Grafton Cup Carnival are about 4000 on Ramornie Day, around about 6000 on Cup day ... that’s ten thousand for the two days.

Add on another 2000 on average for the other three days of the Carnival and we have a total attendance of 16 000 through the racecourse for the Carnival in a town of only 17 500 people.

Bottom line, I think that is a pretty good effort.

**************************************************************************************************

Last but not least, it would be remiss of me if I did not mention the two mainstays in the office.

We’ve got Trish who looks after all the financial part of the Carnival. All of the wages ... and there’s something between three hundred and four hundred people who have to be paid on each day of this Carnival, and there’s a lot of work in doing that. The other job that Trish does is to organise all of the people accommodation for the Carnival.

Sue, on the other side, does all the advertising. She does all the race-books ... puts all that together.

People seldom think about or acknowledge the hard work that goes on behind the scenes but, let me tell you, if they weren’t there doing what they do as well as they do, there would be no Grafton Cup Carnival as we know it.

Credit to them.

More articles