THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - QUEENSLAND'S 'GO TO TRACK' STILL LEADS THE WAY

By Graham Potter | Sunday, November 27, 2016

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

The Sunshine Coast Turf Club continues to take a heavy racing schedule in its stride, a fact which stands very much to its credit.

In the last month, starting October 28 and ending tomorrow, November 27, the club will have hosted no less than nine race meetings, incorporating 73 races during which time the racing surface will have been pounded under full racing conditions by more than five hundred horses.

This commitment to the cause has been well documented in recent years, but it is well worth another look at this time as the club’s performance emphasises the importance of a ‘go to track’ in South East Queensland ... be it when other tracks are taking strain and need a break or are out of action altogether, or when Racing Queensland needs a venue to trial an extended day / night race meeting option.

While the statistics mentioned above are impressive enough in themselves they absolutely glow when presented in comparison to other racing venues.

Weighing in against the Sunshine Coast’s nine meetings in the period mentioned above, Toowoomba had six meetings, Eagle Farm and the Gold Coast had five meetings each, Ipswich had four meetings and Doomben had two meetings.

And for all the weight of work it has to endure, jockeys still roundly consider that the Sunshine Coast track is the best in South East Queensland.

It is so easy to dwell on the many points of vigorous, sometimes negative, debate in Queensland racing ... and if that can somehow help move the industry towards a positive outcome it does serve a purpose ... but all too often the existing positives are not acknowledged for their true worth.

Murray Weeding and his team of track staff are achieving more than just doing something right with the Sunshine Coast track.

Through their hard work and applied expertise they are setting the standard by which all other clubs in South East Queensland are judged and it would seem that, for the foreseeable future at least, the lead they have opened up in this particular race is clearly not under any threat.