HARNESS racing insiders say improved services at Melton’s Tabcorp Park are boosting the sport’s popularity and creating a tourism boom for Melton and Moorabool.
A $37,000 state government grant will be spent on mobile barrier countdown clocks at Harness Racing Victoria’s home track.
It follows a major expansion of the racing program at the venue, which opened in 2009 and became the sport’s Victorian headquarters in 2010.
The clocks will be mounted at the back of the mobile starting barriers, allowing drivers, race callers and spectators to know exactly when a race is going to start.
Tabcorp Park chief executive John Anderson said that with countries like France and Sweden taking more vision of races, the new clocks would remove one of the less attractive elements of harness racing and reduce vision of drivers adjusting gear before the start of a race.
“The time clocks will be a way of improving the discipline of the drivers and improving the visual aspect of harness racing,” he said.
The clocks are the first of their kind in Australia.
Mr Anderson said the recent announcement of an international-quality trotting event, The Great Southern Star, to be held at Melton on March 24 next year, would also attract people from interstate and overseas.
Parwan trainer Alan Tubbs has raced standardbreds for years and has 25 horses on his property, with 15 currently in work.
The family is “steeped in harness racing,” said wife Kate, whose daughter Amy trains and drives sulkies most Friday nights at Tabcorp.
“[The clocks] will make the industry more professional and enhance Australia’s harness profile overseas, particularly in Sweden and France where trotting is incredibly popular and lucrative,” Ms Tubbs said.
“Moonee Valley was leased. We had to share with thoroughbreds, but Melton is our own. We can run our own races, organise events to suit harness racing and pull in those crowds.”
She said having the ‘premier track’ at Tabcorp Park had made events more accessible, as entry was free and facilities were improved.
She said there were nine harness racing stables on Bacchus Marsh-Geelong Road alone and that better facilities at Tabcorp made a “huge difference” to the many Moorabool and Melton residents involved in harness racing.
“We recently won the two and four-year-old trotting titles and that was beamed to France with lots of bets placed,” she said. “There has definitely been a surge of interest, nationally and internationally.”
The government said the harness racing industry was worth more than $250million to the state’s economy and provided more than 2300 jobs. “Harness racing is experiencing a resurgence with a major increase in attendances at race meetings,” Racing Minister Denis Napthine said.
