By Tony McMahon
The Rockhampton racing industry is abuzz as horse transports roll into the city for the three days of the Capricornia Yearling Sales Racing Carnival.
Over the Rockhampton Jockey Club’s racing programs on Friday and Saturday, 14 races will be run for a whopping $533,000 in prize money.
On Sunday, the focus will be on the 2022 Hygain Capricornia Yearling Sales at the Rockhampton Showgrounds where approximately 135 yearlings will be offered for sale.
The sale has been operating each year consecutively since 1987 and is the only one of its kind in provincial Queensland with gross turnover expected to rival the $1.5 million from the 2021 sale.
Friday’s TAB meeting features eight races with horses drawn from throughout Queensland, leading some of the state’s top jockeys to the Beef Capital.
These include Robbie Fraad, Jason Taylor, Brad Stewart and Taylor Marshall as well as regular fly-in metropolitan jockeys Justin Stanley and Ryan Wiggins.
Between them, those six jockeys have ridden 7,088 winners while Stanley has made Callaghan Park ‘his own’ riding no fewer than 193 winners on the Rockhampton track.
Brad Stewart is arriving for just the one ride on Tycoon Fury for local trainer Jamie McConachy in the opening race of the carnival, while the others have busy books of rides.
Friday’s feature is the $25,000 Country Cup (1600m) with horses gathering from Longreach, Roma, Wandoan, Emerald, Toowoomba and Bluff to take on Rockhampton and Mackay counterparts.
However, Saturday houses the main events of the CYS Carnival, with the $125,000 CYS 2YO Plate (1200m) and the $75,000 CYS 3&4YO Handicap (1300m).
Only graduates from the previous Capricornia Yearling Sales are eligible to compete in both, a concept that has been highly successful over the years.
Ian Mill, the RJC CEO said the three-day carnival of racing and yearling sales had once again proven to be the catalyst for not just racing industry stakeholders but the Rockhampton economy itself.
“The stimulus to the local economy will be massive through the influx of racing industry stakeholders at all levels as well as breeders, vendors and visiting buyers,” Mill said.
“It is a very exciting structure which grows each year.”
Backing this sentiment was world renown bloodstock identity and auctioneer David Chester from the Gold Coast’s Magic Millions, with a team of 13 arriving from that entity as selling agents.
“There is nothing like a yearling sale structured around a racing carnival to entice visitors to a city,” Chester said.
It is a fact and it is a huge drawcard for Rocky with all aspects of businesses deriving the benefit.”
Tony Fenlon, the convenor of the CYS, said it had attracted yearlings from most leading thoroughbred nurseries in Queensland, particularly the Darling Downs.
“We even have six yearlings arriving from NSW and there is strong representation from Central Queensland breeders as well. It looks like being a very good sale,” Fenlon said.