‘The Albion Park Harness Racing Club will honour the memory of harness racing great ‘J C McMullen’ with an annual major feature race named in his honour on the opening night of the Winter Carnival at Albion Park.
The inaugural conduct of this feature will be on the opening night of the 2019 Winter Carnival scheduled for Saturday night 6 July and will replace the current Premier’s Cup.
The ‘J C McMullen’ (G3) is of $31,400 over the 2138m for C2/C5 pacers where the winner will only take a Career Penalty that is in accordance with the Australian Handicapping Rules.
John was the doyen of Queensland harness racing for more than half a century and for these achievements he was one of the original Queensland Harness Racing ‘Hall of Fame’ inductees.
His CV is considerable and includes multiple metropolitan trainer and driver premierships at Albion Park, success as a commercial breeder of standardbreds with his partner the late John Gibson at Success Stud, a pioneer in the exporting of the breed to North America where he also had his fair share of success as a trainer and driver over an extended period of time.
This year’s Albion Park Winter Carnival commences on July 6 and runs through until July 20, with the $200,000 TAB Black’s A Fake (G1) a leg of the Australasian Grand Circuit the main feature of the carnival to be conducted on the final Saturday evening.
The Silk’s Marquee will be in operation during the three race nights of the Winter Carnival with the now famous Silk’s seafood smorgasbord available for $89 per person, for bookings ring 07 3262 2044.’