Ballina Cup to go ahead on November 15
The Ballina Cup will go ahead despite the outbreak of equine influenza.
Ballina Mayor, Cr Phillip Silver, today announced that following advice from the Ballina Jockey Club, this year’s Ballina Cup is to be rescheduled to Thursday 15 November 2007.
“The Ballina Jockey Club has advised that following extensive negotiations with NSW Racing, approval has been given to conduct the Ballina Cup on Thursday 15 November. The club has done a lot of hard work to allow this to happen and I congratulate them for their efforts,” Cr Silver said.
Ballina Shire Council has applied to the NSW Minister for Industrial Relations to reschedule the half-day public holiday, originally scheduled for Thursday 13 September, to Thursday 15 November.
Approval is likely to be forthcoming shortly.
“Once the half-day holiday is gazetted I anticipate that both business and the community will show their support for the club by attending what should be a fantastic race day. We all know the racing community has been doing it tough, due to the equine influenza, and it is important that we all turn out on Cup day to show our support for the industry,” Cr Silver said.
Ballina Jockey Club chairman Gary Kliese endorsed the Mayor’s comments and admitted that he was thrilled that Racing NSW had given the approval to proceed.
“The rescheduled Cup is now just after the Melbourne Cup, so the public appreciation of racing will be high. Also it is likely that the Ballina Cup will be the only NSW TAB meeting that day, so I expect
TAB betting turnover on our race day could be at an all-time record. It is also probable that we may have up to nine or ten races on the day,” Mr Kliese said.
