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Innisfail Turf Club’s new track ready for more racing

1 September 2021

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CaD36Jvw.jpegBy Jordan Gerrans 

President Mark Spagnolo has flagged the Innisfail Turf Club’s intentions to become a major player on the North Queensland TAB racing circuit following their recent track upgrades.

Based an hour south of Cairns, Innisfail’s Pease Park was awarded close to $500,000 from the Palaszczuk Government's Country Racing Program to upgrade their facilities and returned to racing earlier in August with their developed racing surface.

Stables from as far south as Mackay travelled to Innisfail for the race day and Spagnolo hopes their improved facilities and surface will help lessen the load on clubs like Cairns and Townsville.

“The fact that we may get more TAB meetings in the future, it is exciting, we are upgrading our jockeys rooms, improving our running rail and have upgraded the track,” Spagnolo said.

“We are in a strategic area here at Innisfail, trainers and jockeys do not have to travel to the Tablelands or Cairns if they are coming from Charters Towers, Bowen or the Burdekin – it is an easier drive here.

“It is a lot closer for them, we are more central here at Innisfail, and we think we have a good system here with good facilities.”

Innisfail picked up a meeting from Cairns in late 2020 when Cannon Park were unable to race as they were finalising works of their own on their track.

Spagnolo and his committee applauded the efforts of The Palaszczuk Government, through the Country Racing Program, to continue to support regional clubs across the Sunshine State.

Experienced Innisfail-based trainer Stephen Potiris believes his home track can attract gallopers from the top stables from around North Queensland.

“All the horses that we race in the north, they mostly come from the same pool of people,” Stephen said.

“It does not matter if you come from Cairns, Townsville and even sometimes Mackay and Rockhampton – you will get the same horses at whichever track on TAB race days.

“It is a good track, it is a fair track and holds a lot of water, which is really good, I think they have done a good job with the drainage and hopefully we can get a few more TAB meetings into the future.”

Innisfail held their first TAB meeting for more than a decade in November of last year and the upgraded track could well provide further opportunities into the future after mainly racing on the non-TAB circuit in recent years.

Spagnolo, a long-time administrator and owner in North Queensland, cannot remember Innisfail’s track, made up of buffalo and couch grass, being in better condition than it is now, describing it as “superb”.

“A lot of work has gone into it and the new sections are brilliant and the old sections are coming good too, with fertilizer and general maintenance, it looks great,” Spagnolo said.

“We have had a lot of work done where the stewards focused on in years past that saw us lose meetings because of the wet areas of the track. It all looks fabulous.”

rFcgvV-c.jpegInnisfail lost almost 10 meetings over the last few years with heavy rain in the days leading in forcing cancellations and Spagnolo is optimistic those days are over following the improvements.

The upgrades included a reprofile of the course proper to fix the reverse camber and installation of sand slit drainage to course proper from the 500 metres to the 900-metre mark and 1100 metres to the 1500 metres, including the 1200-metre and 1500-metre chutes.

On top of that, there has also been an installation of a new plastic inside running rail and relocation of the existing inside running rail to the outside running rail.

“It is good, the track has come up really nice,” Stephen said.

“As many people know, Innisfail is one of the wettest places in the north, situated an hour south of Cairns and three hours north of Townsville.

“We get the bulk of the rain here and since the reopening, it has come up super and they have done a really good job.

“We had a TAB meeting here not long ago, which was really good, we had about 200mm of rain for the week leading into that meeting and we almost raced that entire meeting bar the last race.

“The track raced really good.”

Potiris’ daughter, Maria, also trains at Pease Park and is keen for racing fans from around Australia to know more about Innisfail if they land more TAB race days in the coming years.

“Now that the grass is back open, it is great,” Maria said.

“It is very different to what it used to be, full credit to the Club for upgrading the track, it has held up really well and hopefully we can just keep going forward.

“It would be great to have more TAB races at Innisfail, put the town on the map because a lot of people would not know where Innisfail is.”

Racing Queensland CEO Brendan Parnell thanked The Palaszczuk Government, as well as Innisfail's hard-working committee to get the project up and running. 

"It was really exciting to see in the Far North of the state to see the re-opening on Banana Cup day, of the Innisfail racecourse proper," Parnell said.

"This is the largest project done to date as part of  the Palaszczuk Government's Country Racing Program with around half a million dollars spent on reprofiling the track and adding more drainage in.

"The track raced really well on the day.

"It was the first TAB meeting held at Innisfail for some time and it is a real credit to the Innisfail club and their committee, as well as the Government to roll out these CRP projects."