Sydney racing spotlight turns focus onto country champions

COUNTRY horses will be showcased at Sydney's premier racing event, The Championships, next year with a specially-designated race on the first day of the meeting.

Troy Grant, the NSW minister for racing and the member for Dubbo, has announced the new $300,000 Country Championships Final on April 4 for horses who qualify through a series of races to be held in the major country regions.

The minister said the field would be drawn from a qualifying series of seven races run in March in the seven racing regions across country NSW.

Regional qualifiers will exclusively be horses trained in that area, with each race carrying prize money of $100,000 with a total of $1 million on offer for the series.

The qualifying races are planned for Wagga Wagga, Goulburn, Bathurst, Dubbo, Tamworth, Grafton and Port Macquarie with the first two in each event qualifying for the final.

"Having country horses race for significant prize money and a place at Royal Randwick highlights the important contribution of country racing," Grant said.

Racing NSW chief executive Peter V'landys said the inaugural country series would later be joined by a similar initiative for provincial-trained horses.

"Racing NSW will now fast-track the organisation of Country Showcase race meetings and a Provincial Championships Final is also in development," V'landys said.

"Following consultation with country participants, further details of The Country Championships and race series will be released next week."

Last week the state government announced it would invest $10 million in the 2015 The Championships which will be used for prizemoney and to build a quarantine centre in NSW for visiting international horses.