Melbourne Cup may be over but Inverell's up season is just swinging into action with the running of the Don Bartlett Battlers Cup, RSL Sub Branch Diggers Cup and the Picnic Race Club Cup on Saturday.
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Admission prices have been reduced because of the drought to encourage people to enjoy a day out in these difficulty times.
The first local race is at 2pm with all races covered by the TAB and broadcast on Sky Racing. The $22,000 feature is the Don Bartlett Battlers Cup a unique race where horses qualify by running at any of the small one day club meetings in the north during the year from Mungindi to Tabulam.
They say racing is a funny game and this is evidenced by leading Battlers Cup contender Danigree who qualified after running at Narrabri in March. Less than 12 months ago Danigree and a horse called Surprise Baby fought out the finish of a race at Horsham in country Victoria.
Since then, Danigree was sold to new owners, is now trained at Moree by Peter Sinclair and won an $8000 race at Inverell in October. Surprise Baby has since won nearly a million dollars and was unlucky when coming from last at the turn and finishing less than a length from the winner in the $8 million Melbourne Cup.
Danigree and stablemate Happens Nomore look to be the leading chances in the Battler's Cup with Inverell's hopes resting with Luke Berger's Cavitation. Cavitation qualified with a win at Bingara and returns to its home track after making the long trip to Chinchilla to run second last start.
Local contenders Commander Bam and Just A Dame ran in the placings at the last Inverell meeting when beaten by Smooth Factor and again do battle in the Picnic Race Club Cup over 1200 metres. The form has been confirmed with Smooth Factor winning a $30,000 race at Scone and Commander Bam running another second at Moree.
The Digger's Cup was originally run when returned solders formed their own race club after WWII and is now run over 1800 metres, the only race over that distance run at Inverell. Topweight House Wins trained by Jane Clement at Tamworth has three wins from his last four starts and will have no problems with the distance having won up to 2175 metres in the past.
Elsmore's own Rachael Murray returns home for several rides on the six event program.
