AFTER seven years, harness racing will return to the Ouyen Harness Racing Club this Sunday when it hosts the Ouyen Pacing Cup.
More than 1000 racegoers from Victoria and South Australia are expected to flock to Ouyen to witness the event after the track was one of six harness venues shut down under the previous Brumby Labor Government.
Minister for Racing Denis Napthine made a pre-election promise in 2010 to ensure the return of harness racing to the six tracks across the state.
Ouyen Harness Racing Club secretary Max Jardine said there was a buzz in the Ouyen district about the return of harness racing to the community.
“We’ve put a lot of money and effort into it to give the community something,” Jardine said.
“Financially we’re probably better off staying at Mildura but we’re doing something for the community so we hope the community supports us,” he said.
After the vanilla slice event finished in Ouyen last year, Jardine said the day would prove to be a great way for the small community to come together.
“It’s not all about harness racing, it’s about a family day for the community,” he said.
“Ouyen is a small rural country town and we rely on outlying areas.”
During the first couple of years when Ouyen had to relocate to the Mildura Harness Racing Club, Jardine said the committee had accepted the fact they would not be racing back at Ouyen.
But Jardine credited the dogged persistence of former secretary of the Ouyen Harness Racing Club and current Harness Racing Victoria board member, Geoff Kay, for the return of harness racing to Ouyen.
Jardine said if it wasn’t for Kay’s tireless efforts, the Ouyen Harness Racing Club would not have not returned to its home.
“He drove the Liberal National blokes mad pestering them for three years,” he said
“He has made them keep their word.”
“He has been full on and it’s mainly due to Geoff Kay that we have got the meeting back.”
Jardine said the club had done well financially since racing at Mildura and hoped the return of racing to Ouyen was a step in the right direction not only for the club, but the people of Ouyen.
“We’ve been told we’ve only got one meeting but we will see what happens, at least it’s a start,” he said.
“A lot of people have reminded us of how good our New Year’s Day race meetings used to be and how good it would be good to get it back.
“That’s something that we’ll be looking at.”
Upwards of 10 hours a day has been put into maintaining the track, lawns and stables just to meet Occupational Health and Safety standards.
A major refurbishment has been done of the corner leading into the home straight, with the bottom bend being built up 40 centimetres with 600 tonnes of gravel.
After ticking all the OHS boxes, Harness Racing Victoria gave the green light four weeks ago for the club to go ahead for its meeting.
Jardine said he had been surprised by the amount of interest shown in the lead up to the meeting, with trainers inquiring from as far away as Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo and Adelaide.
“Some of the older people have never been to the trots before but it’s creating that much interest that they’re getting interested in it after all these years,” he said.
“We had an company call up last week wanting to know about the airstrip because they’ve got pilots flying people over.
“A lot of trainers from down south said they will be coming here because they can come to Ouyen and they can be back home at 11 o’clock at night.”
This article appeared in Thursday’s Sunraysia Daily 19/01/2012.
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