Following the success of the Echuca Pacing Cup, Echuca Harness Racing Club president Shane Gloury is confident the event will be another great spectacle for fans.
“We’ve got a lot of great activities on,” Gloury said.
“We’ve got eight great races, including the Caledonian Hotel Easter Cup, but we’ve got a giant Easter egg hunt on for the kids, around about 6.30pm for the younger kids, five and under, and again at about 7pm for the older kids, from six through to about 12 or 13, there’ll be another Easter egg hunt, so plenty of Easter eggs to give away for the kids.”
The off-track entertainment doesn’t stop there, as children can expect some special visitors throughout the race meeting.
“We’ve also got the Transformers coming here for the kids, so plenty to keep the kids entertained,” Gloury said.
“We’ll have Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, two of the Transformers that will be here on track earlier on in the night and then midway through the program they’ll make a return.
“As well as that, we will have a jumping castle for the kids.”
In terms of racing, Gloury is confident the 2160m main event will be a hotly contested affair, with strong fields set to take to the track right throughout the program.
“Numbers in most races are pretty good,” he said.
“The racing will be highly competitive. I think in the main feature race, the Easter Cup, a horse by the name of Killara Shogun will be very, very hard to beat, and the other races will be evenly contested, I think.
“There will be good betting across the board and, overall, we will hopefully have a great night here on Sunday.”
For those betting, a punters’ club will once again be available, with a professional punter hoping to return a strong dividend for the crowd.
“One of the professional punters will be running the punters’ club on behalf of the club,” Gloury said.
“Even if you’re not a regular punter, you can put $10 in to the punters’ club, have a punters’ club ticket, the professional punter will make bets on everyone’s behalf, and hopefully at the end of the night we’ve got a winning dividend that can be returned back.”
Having just hosted the Echuca Pacing Cup, the club is hoping for a stronger turnout this weekend, according to Gloury.
“The meeting itself went fine. We were a little bit disappointed our crowd numbers were down,” he said of the turnout for the Echuca Pacing Cup.
“Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great throughout the day and, unfortunately, probably the same weekend as the Southern 80, there’s a lot of locals that when the Southern 80 is on either disappear or remain in their homes, so our numbers were unfortunately down on the year before.”
Gloury hopes the promise of a huge display both on and off-track this Sunday will see those numbers bounce back, with plenty of entertainment for children and parents alike.
“There is lots to keep everyone entertained. It’s one of our feature meetings of the year, the Easter Cup meeting, and really looking forward to Sunday,” he said.
“We’ll just keep our fingers crossed that the weather gods are kind to us.”
Gates open at 4.30pm on Sunday, with the first race getting under way at 6:12pm.
Kids enter free and adult tickets can be purchased for $10 at echucaharnessracingclub.com
Sulky Shorts will appear in Monday’s Riv.
Golf notes can be found on page 17.
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