Rain puts Innisfail’s TAB dress rehearsal on hold
Innisfail Turf Club lost a rare chance to host a TAB meeting on Saturday afternoon following heavy rain. How does the abandonment impact the club’s chances of picking up another TAB day in the future?
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Innisfail Turf Club will have to wait until later into 2020 to have their time in the sun and show Racing Queensland they deserve TAB meetings at Pease Park.
Mooted as the club’s big dress rehearsal for more TAB days, the five-event program on Saturday was washed out late in the morning after about 40mm of rainfall was recorded, on top of 60mm recorded in the previous seven days.
The Cassowary Coast-based club received one TAB meeting this season after it was suggested Pease Park could host as many as six midweek TAB meetings into the future, with their Annuals and Banana Cup Race Day staying as non-TAB Saturdays.
“It is disappointing for us as a club as it was our first TAB meeting for quite a few years,” club president Mark Spagnolo said.
“It was going to be our big trial run for the TAB day to look at takings, turnover and all those things.
“There was already a few sizeable bets on the first race before they were abandoned.
“We will need to go back to Racing Queensland now as one of the main reasons of this upgrade is so we can do TAB meetings into the future.
“If we can, it takes the pressure off Cairns and other places.”
When Innisfail now get the chance to push their case for the increased spotlight is up in the air, with upgrades on their track set to start soon.
In June 2019, the club received around $500,000 as part of the State Government’s Country Racing Support Package to upgrade the reverse camber from the 800m up the straight.
Pease Park is scheduled to race once each in April, May and June this year, but these are unlikely to be run if the upgrades go ahead soon.
No official start date for the upgrades has yet been supplied to the club as the original time frame was February or March this year.
“If the upgrades go ahead now, we probably will not race again until Banana Day, which is in August,” Spagnolo said.
“We have been busy working with Racing Queensland to hold this and future events at Innisfail and Racing Queensland are investing nearly half a million dollars in our town, which will see the upgrading of about half our course proper to change the reverse camber near the pony club, Ash St side and to the PCYC side of the racetrack.”
Originally published as Rain puts Innisfail’s TAB dress rehearsal on hold