Horse Racing
4 April, 2024
Big crowd at Easter races
Racegoers braved the 32-degree Celsius heat on Saturday to attend the Emmett's Warracknabeal Cup meeting.
Many had returned to the town for the weekend's festivities and to catch up with friends at the races.
The club has promoted the race meeting as a family-friendly one and 180 under 17s attended with at times 50 actively involved with the industry-funded Kelly Sports program.
The Emmett's Warracknabeal Cup was won by the six-year-old Thunder Point trained by Symon Wilde from Warrnambool. He was ridden by Horsham jockey Dean Yendall who has developed a successful partnership with Wilde.
It was the third country cup won by the Wilde Yendall combination this season having previously won the Donald and Camperdown Cups with Mister Me.
Thunder Point relished the drop in class from his past two city runs starting a $2.90 favourite winning by 3/4 length from Aspen Colorado and Belthil.
Multiple winners on the program were jockeys Linda Meech and Tom Madden and trainer Ben Brisbourne from Wangaratta.
The track received high praise from Industry participants, especially to the club groundsman John Jess who had the task of preparing the track with no rain falling in the weeks prior.