Tweed River Jockey Club secretary-manager Rachael Elliott says she is excited to be experiencing her first Murwillumbah Cup Carnival in charge of one of northern New South Wales’s big country racing festivals.
“I became familiar with my present role as a person coming into the industry at about this time last year, and my predecessor Steve Huggins was kind enough to ease me through that transition by staying on until I was settled in,” Ms Elliott said.
“I’d hesitate to say that I’m doing it on my own now, because there are so many people pitching in to make a success of any race meeting and the Cup Carnival in particular – people like club chairman Bernie Quinn, the ground staff and so many other everyday members of the club who are all invaluable members of the team.
“The always so important racing surface, for example, is looking great at the moment but it doesn’t happen on its own, it’s the cumulative effort of lots of people pitching in, our ground staff in particular. It takes a team effort to make a successful country race carnival – it is after all very much a community event.”
The first leg of the Murwillumbah Cup Carnival will be staged today (Sunday 2nd June) with the running of the 1800m Murwillumbah Cup Prelude and the 1200m Tursa Newmarket Handicap Prelude. The respective winners of those events will secure a berth for $33,250 Murwillumbah Cup (2000m) and $23,150 Newmarket Handicap (1200m) on 23 June.
In other Cup Carnival news, last year’s cup winner Castlemagne King recently blitzed his rivals second-up over 1900m at Taree scoring by 3.5 lengths. With last year’s win under his belt, Castlemagne King is an automatic qualifier for next month’s cup race if connections choose to race him.
Another previous Murwillumbah Cup starter who has made it onto punter’s radar is the Ballina-trained Storm Fabulador, originally hailing from Argentina and educated by legendary horseman Monty Roberts. Storm Fabulador came back from a spell in late March and has recorded four second placings over his last four starts, in distances between 1900m and 2110m.
The six-year-old gelding is more mature than when he ran seven lengths seventh of 11 runners in the 2011 cup race at his first attempt over 2000m. At his only subsequent Murwillumbah starts he has saluted and finished runner-up.
Source : Racing NSW
