Gympie Turf Club tips harness racing to be a big drawcard at their feature race day

For the first time in a long time the Gympie Turf Club will host harness racing at the ‘Gold Rush’ city’s Southside racetrack tomorrow.

Gympie Turf Club president Spencer Slatter is tipping the Zinc 96 Family Picnic Day to be one of their best ever with the addition of the three trot races to the program certain to be a hit with punters.

Slatter said the Gympie sand track would be watered and rolled in preparation for the trots which will be raced from 3.50pm starting after the thoroughbred program.

The club was given the idea to have the trots compliment their traditional gallops day from nearby clubs like Kilcoy which run their dual code harness/thoroughbred race meetings at their grass track.

“There’s been a lot of interest in harness racing at other thoroughbred tracks so we thought it would be good to have them race here as well,” Slatter said. “I have never heard of trots being run on a sand (thoroughbred) track like ours before so for Gympie this will be a first,” .

Locals reckon harness racing could be making a comeback in the country centres north of Brisbane with the Gympie Show also racing the trot exhibition races on their rejuvenated show grounds track in May this year. Other shows including the Sunshine Coast (Nambour), Caboolture and Nanango have also reintroduced harness racing to their show schedules this year.

“The show people in Gympie found the trots very exciting,” Slatter said.

Three seven horse non-tab harness races will be held from an hour after the last thoroughbred race is run to allow time to prepare the track.

The day supports the Wish List Foundation charity and there will be heaps of family activities including face painting, balloon twisters, a jumping castle and the Disney characters from the film Frozen will join the Zinc 96 party at 5pm after the races.