Brisbane Racing Club counts the cost of Queensland Oaks Day washout

THE Brisbane Racing Club was counting the cost of Saturday’s washed out its Oaks Day meeting, with early ­estimates putting the loss at $400,000.

Oaks Day was a washout at Eagle Farm on Saturday. Picture: Liam Kidston

THE Brisbane Racing Club was counting the cost of Saturday’s washed out its Oaks Day meeting, with early ­estimates putting the loss at $400,000.

BRC chief executive Dave Whimpey said the final figures would take some time to ­crystallise and he hoped Saturday’s abandonment will ­provide a big upside for ­Saturday’s Stradbroke.

“I would say it’s cost us conservatively around the $400,000 mark,” Whimpey said. “That’s yet to be determined based on how many people turn up (Saturday). We’re a bit ‘suck it and see’ really. The question is can we pick up some of that next week.”

Whimpey said some clients had already made new bookings for next week, which meant the club needed to find new space to accommodate them.

“What it means for us is building more. One client wants to double up next week so we will build more space for them at our cost,” he said.

Whimpey said the big wet would however still produce some positive results.

“If there is a silver lining it is having four Group 1s on Super Saturday. It will be a very special day for us,” he said. “Plus we all need rain, it’s been very dry.

“Long term, the track will be better served not racing (Saturday). It would have put the track under undue pressure. We will have a better surface next Saturday as a result of this.”

In Sydney last year, the first day of The Championships was washed out and transferred to Easter Monday.

Estimates had a cost to the Australian Turf Club of more than $2 million, but it was offset by an insurance policy, which was taken after some debate about the $150,000 premium.

Whimpey said it was a more desirable outcome transferring some of the feature races rather than trying to re-run the meeting on Sunday or Monday and a different scenario to the one where the ATC postponed the meeting.

“The ATC had a race program they had to try and meet, unlike us, where we were able to shuffle a few races around, they had to run otherwise they would have lost those races,” he said.

Originally published as Brisbane Racing Club counts the cost of Queensland Oaks Day washout