AFTER four years of Friday meetings, the Horsham Cup will return to a Sunday date in 2018 and the move has been widely welcomed.
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The premier meeting on the Horsham and District Racing Club calendar will take place on October 21.
Manager Lisa Inkster said the club naturally welcomed the change.
“It was never our choice to leave the weekend however we had to for obvious reasons,” she said.
“Now that we are back on a Sunday we hope that we can rebuild the cup to what it once was for both us, as a race club, and the business community.”
The cup meeting moved in 2014 to avoid a clash with the larger Seymour Cup under instruction from Racing Victoria who ruled that country cup meetings could not be held on the same day.
With no other weekends available in spring, the Horsham club had the option to move to the meeting to another time of year or change the day.
After ultimately deciding to host the meeting on Friday the club lobbied Horsham Rural City Council to introduce a public holiday on that day.
The council moved the Melbourne Cup public holiday to coincide with the Horsham Cup in 2017.
After initially introducing the shift as part of a three-year trial the council the public holiday back to the first Tuesday in November for 2018 following backlash from Horsham’s business community.
Mrs Inkster said the club had wanted to try to build the meeting up on a Friday with the help of a public holiday.
“It’s a bittersweet change because we had hoped that it would be onwards and upqwards with the build of the public holiday, but that’s not to be,” she said.
The Seymour and Horsham Cups will against be held on the same day this year.
Mrs Inkster said Racing Victoria allowed the meetings to be held on the same date due to the distance between them limiting the impact they would have on one another.
“We wouldn’t imagine a clash in horses or public patrons because we are basically on the opposite sides of the state,” she said.
Horsham Mayor Pam Clarke said welcomed the change.
“It will be good for Horsham as well as the cup and we wish them all the best,” she said.
Cr Clarke said the change was the best result possible.
“We believe that if we refused the public holiday it would be the catalyst for the club to be able to go back to the Racing Victoria and try to change the date again,” she said.
Business Horsham executive administrator Wendy Mitchell said the move was a big win for everyone.
“Business Horsham are very pleased that the racing club has been awarded a Sunday for the Horsham Cup,” she said.
“It means families will be able to enjoy the day together, the racing club will have better attendance and businesses will gain the add on sales that racing days bring to the table.”
Planning for the 2018 meeting has not been altered by the change of date.
Mrs Inkster said the club already thought it had together a good idea of worked on a Sunday.
“We’re naturally open to ideas if anybody wants to come to us with anything that they thought would be a real winner on the Sunday then they can get in contact with us,” she said.
“Otherwise we’ll stick to what we’ve done in the past.”