Bunbury Turf Club boss Alex Doble admits additional track traffic from Belmont meetings ‘absolutely’ a concern

Bunbury Turf Club chief executive Alex Doble has admitted additional track traffic from rescheduled Belmont meetings is “absolutely” a concern for the club, but says they are trying to play their role in supporting the wider industry. Races were abandoned mid-meeting at Perth’s traditional home of winter racing last month due to issues with a section of the track and are yet to resume, with Racing WA and Perth Racing releasing a joint statement last week saying a complete replacement would be undertaken of the troublesome turf. Bunbury has hosted three race meetings moved from Belmont over the past two weeks, including one on Saturday headlined by the Listed Raconteur Stakes. On Tuesday, Doble said the last-minute nature of the changes had presented some challenges for the club. “It’s not an ideal time of year to increase your meeting loads over your track,” he said. “We’re working around the clock to make sure there’s a fresh pad for every race meeting. “We’re all industry-minded and we want to deliver race meetings for participants, we want prize money to go out the door. “We’re also mindful of avoiding any long-term damage that might compromise our season over the spring-summer Bunbury Cup period.” Doble said the club did have the option of turning down the opportunity to host the meetings and had seriously considered it. “Financially, it’s not really a huge windfall. I’m not going to say we lose money . . . but when they’re transferred at such short notice, there’s not really a lot of opportunity to generate revenue from those meetings,” he said. “Last Saturday, for example, we had a nice little crowd here, but it was also brutally cold. Winter’s not the best time of year to be attracting racegoers on course.” Despite the additional traffic, Doble said he had no doubts the track would present in perfect condition for the club’s marquee winter meeting, the South West Cup, on July 6. “With our rail moves, it’ll be run on the true pad and the true pad wouldn’t have been touched for over a month,” he said. “It’ll be a great racing surface for the South West Cup.” Racing WA on Tuesday released an amended calendar through to the nominal end of the racing season in July which has seen Bunbury lose a meeting which was slated for June 25 to Northam but add four additional race-days. In what will be a first for the club, two official meetings are slated to be held on the course’s fibre-sand track, which was installed as part of a $30 million redevelopment completed last year. Racing WA thoroughbred operations manager Vinny Meens said the fibre-sand track had received conditional approval to host race meetings but stewards were still yet to determine field limits and meetings would be subject to sufficient nominations and acceptances.