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New $100,000 Midway Race to be added to metropolitan Saturday race meetings

Racing NSW on Wednesday announced prize-money increases of nearly $20 million annually and the creation of a new $100,000 Midway Race to be added to metropolitan Saturday race meetings.

This announcement is highlighted by almost $9 million of increases in prize-money for country race meetings to be applied across all sectors of country racing including non-TAB and Picnic races.

Further, the creation of the $100,000 Midway Races exclusively for horses from small to mid-sized NSW metropolitan and provincial stables to be run at metropolitan Saturday race meetings from 1 July 2021. A point scoring system will be applied to such trainers based on the number and level of race of winners trained by them in the previous year to see if they meet the mid-size category.

Prize-money for TAB Highway races (which are for country domiciled horses only) will also be increased to $100,000. With this announcement, total annual prize-money to be paid for country racing in NSW will now be more than $91 million which is an increase of $58 million (176%) since 2012. Country racing has received the largest increase of any sector over this time.

Minimum prize-money increases for Country and Metropolitan racing from 1 July 2021 are outlined below:

There will also be a further 20 country race meetings that will be upgraded to Country Showcase status carrying prize-money of $30,000 per race, an annual increase of $1,280,000.

Our Spring Racing Carnival from 2021 has also been enhanced as set out below, with increased prize-money for a number of feature races, highlighted by the Epsom Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) prize-money increasing to $1.5 million and a $1 million bonus to any horse that is able to win both the Craven Plate (Gr 3, 2000m) and the Rosehill Gold Cup (2000m) in the same year.

Additional feature races have been introduced to further strengthen the revamped Spring Racing Carnival introduced by Racing NSW, which is headlined by The Everest (1200m) and The Golden Eagle (1500m) in the metropolitan area with The Hunter (1300m) and The Gong (1600m) featuring in the regional areas.

Minister for Racing, Mr Kevin Anderson, welcomed the prize-money increases and creation of the Midway Races.

“It is great to see continued increases in prizemoney to the grassroots of racing and new ways to broaden and strengthen racing in NSW,” Anderson said.

“Racing continues to go from strength to strength in NSW across the board, whether it be feature Carnivals, TAB racing or non-TAB and picnic racing.”

The chairman of Racing NSW, Russell Balding, identified the importance of prize-money increases being spread throughout the industry: “We are pleased to be able to announce this significant increase in prize-money which will benefit country races as well as the Saturday metropolitan race meeting each week. 

These increases broaden the spread of prize-money and further improve the dividends back to our owners and participants. We also want to make sure that our traditional Spring Feature races continue to attract quality fields and maintain their prize-money relativity.

The objective of the Midway Races is to build the competitiveness of small to mid-sized stables and further develop the field sizes and quality for metropolitan racing.”