Great festival of horse racing as Woodville trainer wins Cup

These jockeys waited their turn to race. From left: Courtney Barns, Tayla Mitchell, Tegan Newman, Toni Davies, Sief Butcher.

Top fields, top weather, top organisation, top crowds, top sponsorship and top racing made the Woodville Easter Race Day Carnival a huge success on Easter Monday.

There were enough entries to fill 10 races and virtually no scratchings which made for very interesting racing. The track was pronounced a “good 4″ thanks to fine weather leading up to the day and of course excellent work by the caretaking staff.

The fine weather lasted until just after the Woodville-Pahiatua Cup Race 8 when a rainbow foretold of a southerly shower.

Woodville-Pahiatua Cup winner Illusion of Paris' owner Kevin O'Neil with his jockey and race sponsor Shaun Borlase of DDS.

The cup was sponsored by Dannevirke Dairy Supplies which backed the whole meet, but for the first time in nearly 15 years, every race had its own sponsor - something committee members said not even the top tracks can guarantee.

This made for good purses on each race and enough to shout race club members a free lunch and drinks in the upper lounge for the day.

A huge crowd came out to enjoy the racing and festivities. A sight not seen for some years was a full carpark and the club even ran out of race books! A fee of $5 at the gate will help pay for course upgrades.

The children had a great time on the bouncy castle and train supplied by Corrie and David Cooper with an Easter Egg Hunt having the Easter Bunny very busy redeeming plastic carrots etc for chocolate delights.

Get Funky (purple top and winner) and Stipulator battle it out in race five the Dannevirke Carriers 1100m.

And the racing was exciting, especially because local trainer Shane Brown trained the winner of the Woodville-Pahiatua Cup Illusion of Paris for owners Kevin O’Neil and AD Rowden. It beat the favourite Boston Strong Boy starting from the outside spot but making up the distance in the 1600mrace winning by a length in a very popular win.

It was not Shane’s first win of the day either Graeme John won the fourth race the MacDougalls Agri Services 1100m.