Dubbo Turf Club is determined to continue raising its profile in the coming years and the hope is last week's announcement from Racing NSW can help make that happen.
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The club has already come a long way in recent years, with major upgrades to the track, stables and wider facility having taken place.
The fruits of that labour have been clear to see with the average field size at Dubbo meetings regularly the best in the bush while more than 150 horses are trained at the track.
The current goal is to continue making the biggest race of the year at the track, the $100,000 Dubbo Gold Cup, even more prestigious.
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The COVID pandemic and crowd restrictions have made life difficult in recent years, hampering plans to make the Gold Cup more of an event across a whole weekend rather than just one afternoon.
But now things are slowly getting to a new normal at rack tracks around the country and last week Racing NSW announced a new major race and it could also help boost the Gold Cup.
The Big Dance, a $2 million event to be run on Melbourne Cup Day at Royal Randwick, will be restricted to horses that contest any one of 25 selected country cups throughout the year.
Dubbo Turf Club operations manager Sam Fitzgerald stated last week he was hopeful the Gold Cup would be one of those events.
Not only would it be a boost for trainers in the local area who contest the race, but it would help increase the profile of the Gold Cup.
"We're looking to commit to lifting the profile of our Dubbo Gold Cup to somewhere in the vicinity of those bigger country cups like Wagga and Albury," he said.
We're looking to commit to lifting the profile of our Dubbo Gold Cup to somewhere in the vicinity of those bigger country cups like Wagga and Albury.
- Sam Fitzgerald
"We've got a really good facility here that's capable of handling a couple of hundred horses and potentially more working and, I think, we're probably the second biggest country club in NSW in terms of the total number of trained starters.
"We're seeing the benefits of that (work) in our training facilities and our racing facilities and, certainty, we're a club that's on the up."
Sunday was Dubbo Turf Club's Summer Sunday Race Day and there will be six more meetings at the track this season.
There will then be 18 meetings in total at Dubbo Turf Club in the 2022/23 season.
"We're very blessed here," Fitzgerald added.
"We've got a really dynamic committee and some really good staff who are bringing this vision of trying to take the club to a new level."
The next Dubbo meeting is Friday, March 4.
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Nick Guthrie
I started working at the Daily Liberal in 2013 and now hold the position of senior journalist. I cover all that's happening in sport in Dubbo and the wider western area and have a passion for doing so. If you've got a story that needs telling, reach out.
I started working at the Daily Liberal in 2013 and now hold the position of senior journalist. I cover all that's happening in sport in Dubbo and the wider western area and have a passion for doing so. If you've got a story that needs telling, reach out.
