Latrobe Valley, Echuca, Manangatang: Country racing clubs’ view on two failed Springs

It was the sport that never stopped, even during the pandemic. But how do country racing clubs feel about disruption to the events that local economies rely on?

It has been a quiet two years without the clacking of high heels, cheers of successful bets placed and popping of bubbly bottles at race tracks across regional Victoria.

While horse racing itself was able to continue, the in-person events that help contribute more than $750 million to the economy were put on hold.

For some of the 66 clubs that make up Country Racing Victoria, not being able to have punters on the track had both a financial and social impact, and the flow-on effects were felt throughout regional towns.

Latrobe Valley Racing Club were thankful to be able to continue racing over the past two years, but had missed out on their two feature events last year.

“It’s a lot of money that we would make on race days and we do miss that, but we’re not about just making profit. We’re about providing a great day — we just want people at the track,” chairman and acting chief executive Frank Bezzina said.

Latrobe Valley Racing Club were impacted by Covid and no crowds allowed at events. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Mr Bezzina said the cancellation of their events would hit local businesses the hardest, as memberships for his club remained strong.

“We hire all workers locally and things like garbage collection, the bands, the marquees and the catering have all been impacted.

“We used to own a dress shop and the racing carnival was best time of the year and now that’s zero,” he said.

”Normally every restaurant is overflowing and people go into the town to party on but that will be all dead — it goes into the hundreds of thousands of dollars of missed opportunity to take advantage of race day,” Mr Bezzina said.

Similarity, the Kerang Turf Club, who had a mixture of cancelled and restricted events, said the biggest losers from no racing carnival were the local residents.

“The impact of a community not being able to host something as uniquely Australian as country racing is a significant and heartfelt loss for racing fans, sponsors, and other clubs who collaborate on the event,” community engagement manager Jackie Noonan said.

“The community connectedness and camaraderie which country racing fosters has been missed, and it’s been hard to live without for many.”

Ms Noonan also said planning an event with Covid rules was also quite difficult.

“In an event sense it was too challenging for a volunteer committee with limited resources to continually be faced with moving event management goalposts,” she said.

Mansfield District Racing Club’s picnic racing season was also significantly impacted in 2020, with the events normally benefiting a number of community groups, including sporting and service clubs, pony club and local charities.

“There was a loss of revenue for the club as well as contractors, suppliers caterers and local retailers,” president Leanne Backwell said.

Organisations such as Stawell Racing Club who were fortunate to not have to cancel any of their events, said the restrictions on crowd numbers did however impact them financially, with less tickets sold and bar takings down.

Contrastly, both Echuca and Dederang felt that being able to continue racing and host events with crowds, albeit restricted, did not have an impact on their clubs.

“To be honest, I feel as though racing has been extremely fortunate to continue to be able to work through the numerous lockdowns. Here we were able to see racing continue, although, predominantly “crowd free” but our work continued, or jobs continued,” Echuca race club manager Garry Armstrong said.

The Manangatang Cup is one of the stalwart events for the region, and has been cancelled two years in a row.

Country Racing communications manager Maggie Payne said the clubs had done well to deal with the rollercoaster of continuing the sport during the pandemic.

“It’s been a difficult 18 months and for these clubs its important to understand these clubs are volunteer-based. And we can see it’s impacted the smaller clubs more,” she said.

“With the cancellation of big country cups like Manangatang and Gunbower there’s a longing from country communities to get back out there.”

Ms Payne said the pandemic also lead to an unexpected uptake of support for the sport.

“All eyes were on our sport and one thing that flowed was an increase in wagering and betting and people consuming racing which was beneficial to the industry,” she said.

Mr Bezzina said the support they received from not only locally-based sponsors such as Darren Howe at the Latrobe City Council, but also the state government and Racing Victoria was a testament to the industry.

“We’ve had government and racing industry support which helped us keep going to maintain the track and facility,” he said.

The announcement that a crowd of 10,000 people would be allowed at the Melbourne Cup has excited both clubs and the industry body, who are expecting race days to bounce back bigger than ever before, when permitted.

“We envisage post Melbourne Cup Day we’ll be having people back on country race tracks like in Ballarat, Pakenham and Warrnmabool,” Ms Payne said.

“I think the community and clubs will embrace it with open arms,” she said.

Mr Bezzina said he is hopeful their Traralgon Cup Day will be able to go ahead in November.

“We’ve worked hard all year to keep our track and facilities working even though people can’t come to the track.

“We used to worry about the weather but we don’t care now, we just want people at the track,” he said.