Racing: Change of Ellerslie carnival dates proving great success

Chris Weaver

The change of carnival dates is working brilliantly, says the Auckland Racing Club.

ARC officials knew they had it in the bag when punters nationwide bet $1.78 million on Wednesday's Auckland Cup, fractionally ahead of the turnover when the Cup was last run in January last year.

"We budgeted to do a million dollars on course for both Derby Day and Cup day," said ARC chief executive officer Chris Weaver.

"We did $710,000 on Saturday and $1.2 million on yesterday, so we're only a touch off budget.

"The combined on-course turnover on the two major days of Boxing Day and January 1 and these two days has been $4.15 million against a budget of $4.1 million."

Those figures do not include the $900,000-plus bet on the fixed odds book with the TAB.

Fixed odds is the biggest growth area in horse racing.

The consensus among sponsors was that the non-holiday Wednesday in March is a much more suitable day to host corporate clients than Boxing Day or New Year's Day.

"This is something we can really build on now," said a delighted Weaver.