Explosive start to new season at Echuca Cup meeting

Northern Victoria’s Echuca Harness Racing club has set a high benchmark for the 2025 Country Cups season with a huge crowd by modern day standards at its New Year’s Day fixture (Jan 1).

Frank Ryan Raceway came alive with a big bang on Wednesday night with a huge crowd, buoyed by a significant influx of tourists and holidaymakers, turning out for an enjoyable night at the trots in perfect conditions.

The meeting delivered a fantastic combination of grassroots harness racing and family-friendly entertainment with highlights including the Pacing and Trotting Cups, live music and a spectacular fireworks display after the last race, free activities for the kids and a bustling food truck court.

Echuca Harness Racing Club President Shane Gloury praised the hard work of his committee for a satisfying result.

“Some of the life members and long-time supporters of the club told me it was the biggest crowd they’d seen at Echuca Trots for more than 20 years,” Gloury said.

“We took $12,300 in admission sales at the gates. To put that into perspective, Paul Rowse, the CEO of Ballarat Trotting Club, mentioned that gate receipts at their highly successful Ballarat Cup Meeting last year were around $6000. That gives you an idea of the numbers we had on track.”

The event also drew high praise from leading driver James Herbertson, who remarked it was the biggest crowd he had seen at a Victorian Country Cup Meeting in his career.

But the large attendance did pose some challenges, particularly with on-course betting.

Gloury said the absence of a TAB service at Victorian harness or greyhound meetings meant long queues for the single bookmaker available on the night.

“We understand the frustration from punters who faced some delays to place bets,” Gloury acknowledged.

“Next year, we will ensure we have more bookmakers on course to accommodate the large number of punters we’re attracting to our Cup Meeting”

On the track, the Echuca Pacing Cup was won in impressive fashion by the Stephen O’Donoghue-trained Followtheace (Art Major), driven by Ryan Sanderson, while the Echuca Trotters Cup went to the Brent Lilley-trained John’s Boy (Simon Roydon), driven by emerging reinsman Tristen Larsen.

This year, the Echuca Club made a strategic decision to focus their cups on emerging talent rather than open-class horses, given the proximity of the Cup fixture to the Bendigo (Jan 4) and Cobram Cup (Jan 6) meetings.

“As a grassroots club, we chose to focus on M0-class horses coming through the ranks rather than competing for the limited number of fast-class horses,” Gloury explained.

“We also redistributed prize money, putting less into the cup races and topped up all of our support races to better reward grassroots horses and trainers who regularly race at Echuca. Supporting the grassroots of the industry is critical during these challenging times.”

HOOFNOTE: In-form Mildura trainer Naomi Kerr already has at least one winner in the book at tonight’s Swan Hill meeting (Jan 5)!

Kerr trains all eight runners in the fourth race, the Toshiba Air Conditioning Pace for Non-Metropolitan Win class horses.

It’s a feat President Noel Watson cannot recall previously in his long association with the Swan Hill Harness Racing Club and its predecessor Nyah HRC.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink