By Tania Phillips
For the first time, the Warwick Turf Club will play host to the Melbourne Cup trophy in the lead up to the big event and to their own blue riband race meeting.
Turf Club secretary, Kristen Doyle, said the coveted trophy was due to arrive in town on 29 September.
“So, a couple of weeks out from our cup we’ve got the Melbourne Cup coming to visit – like the actual trophy,” she enthused.
“It’s the first time we’ve had that visit us. We are older than the actual Melbourne Cup event but yes this is the first time it has come here. “
She said the trophy would visit 24 locations around the country in the lead-up to this year’s “Race that Stops A Nation”.
Each of the turf club’s visited by the cup in the lead up to the Melbourne cup will go into a special sweep and have one of the Melbourne cup runners drawn for them to follow and hopefully win with.
“If our horse wins, the $50,000 winnings gets donated to our charity of choice – it makes it a bit more exciting for the town when we watch it,” Kristen said.
“Our local charity The Endeavour Learning and Lifestyle Centre in Warwick gets the donation if the horse we draw wins.
“The 24 towns they’ve selected – and we’re one of them – got into that sweep. It’s exciting.
“We are having a big cup launch on 29 September. We’ve got a whole program for the day the Melbourne Cup to come into town. It’s also going out to Killarney to visit for an hour or so during the day and then we are going to have a big dinner evening with special guests, a three-course dinner and some promotional stuff.
“It will be a big couple of weeks.”
The main Melbourne Cup Trophy visit event will be held at the turf club from 6pm with the dinner served from 6.30pm. Tickets are available on the Turf Club’s Eventbrite site.
