No punters, but $31,000 on offer for Beef Week Cup
A CASINO trainer is aiming for Beef Week success with Casino Cup winning horse Landmarks.
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CASINO trainer Scott Cumming will aim to win the Beef Week Cup for the first time on Friday with seven-year-old gelding Landmarks.
Landmarks won back-to-back Casino Cups in 2017 and 2018 and has only won four races at Grafton and Lismore since.
It has won three of its six starts at Casino and ran ninth in the Beef Week Cup in 2019.
Lismore trainer Daniel Bowen won the race last year with his impressive mare Queen of Kingston.
This time he has nominated Antilia after Queen of Kingston died from an injury earlier this year.
>>> Death of one of Lismore’s top racehorses devastates trainer
Casino Racing Club secretary-manager Renee Opryszko was happy to receive 24 nominations for the Beef Week Cup.
There will be no crowds this year under coronavirus restrictions which has put a damper on the club’s biggest day of the year.
“It will be a bit different this year but there’s not much we can do about it, unfortunately,” Opryszko said.
“We’re very happy with the nominations though, it’s always been a sought after race.
“Horses still need to run and we’re doing all we can to keep things ticking over.”
The prizemoney allocated is still decent with $31,500 for the Beef Week Cup after it was $35,000 last year.
The supporting races are all worth $20,000 after they were originally set at $22,000
“It’s only a 10 per cent drop, it could have been worse,” Opryszko said.
“We’ve got the Casino Cup in August, so hopefully we might be able to have some people back by then.
“We don’t race again after that until October and that’s only one of our smaller meetings.”
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