A TRUST fund designed to help local racing participants who fall on hard times will be boosted after a successful bowls day held in Dubbo at the weekend.
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About 120 industry participants attended the event, which continues a recent tradition in the central west and will see close to $13,000 go into the fund.
Stemming from a cricket match between jockeys and trainers/stewards after the death of former steward James Perry in the 2011 Queensland floods, the annual fundraising day brings together those that usually compete against each other, for a mutual cause.
"It's a great concept and one we're really lucky to have up and running," central west chief steward Todd Smith said.
"The trust is there to help racing people from our area when things get a bit tough, and we have a committee of people from all sectors of the industry that sit on that committee.
"It all started with the James Perry cricket match a few years back. That gave us the idea and Rodney Robb has been a massive driving force since then in making it happen.
"A lot of people help out to make things like this happen, which is good, because you never know what's around the corner and anyone could need a bit of a helping hand."
The team of Ken Dunbar, Kody Nestor, Natalie Hayes and Rhett Butler were the winners on the day, but their victory turned into an even bigger result for the fundraising side of things.
"The prize for the winners included a $200 TAB voucher for each player, but Ken and Kody are jockeys and can't bet, and Natalie is a bit young, so we actually took those vouchers and auctioned them off to make a bit more money for the fund," Smith said.
"We had great support from so many people. Racing NSW got right behind us with the donation of some prizes, Clive Robb donated a lot of the meat, Dubbo Turf Club donated a lot of the salads, we had trainers there cooking the barbecues and the Dubbo City Bowling Club was a great venue that had everything we were after.
"We were supposed to have it earlier in the year but got washed out. In the end it worked out OK because the weather was good and we had Katie Atherton, one of our stewards, dressed up as Santa to entertain the kids."
The planning committee will meet this Saturday to work out the distribution of funds raised on the day, with the family of recently-deceased picnic jockey Stuart Brown expected to receive some of the proceeds.
