Some 3345 punters walked through the gates on Friday to observe Plymouth take out the bet365 Benalla Gold Cup, with the Ben, Will and JD Hayes-trained four-year-old gelding, ridden by Blaike McDougall, saluting by half a length in the $125,000 race.
Benalla Racing Club general manager Cameron Symes was thrilled with the crowd, which continues to grow year upon year.
“It was an absolutely fantastic day,” he said.
“(We had a) bumper crowd, a record crowd, which was fantastic to see everyone come out and support the Benalla Cup, which is just growing from strength to strength.
“Our crowd was up 22 per cent, so fantastic result, our bar was up over 55 per cent, so we’re absolutely thrilled with the day, and credit to the team that put it all together.”
Punters travelled from across the Goulburn Valley and even Melbourne to attend the Benalla Racing Club’s flagship race day, with about 600 more patrons attending than in 2024, many of whom spent time and money in town, too, in an added boost for local businesses.
“Last year we had just over 2700, so I think it works out about 22 per cent up (this year) with our crowd, which, when you look at that as a percentage, it’s fantastic,” Symes said.
“A big thanks to everyone that came out and supported the day, it’s great to see, and they travelled from far (to attend).
“I think we had two buses from Shepparton, we had a bus from Euroa, a couple of buses from Yarrawonga, and a lot of our pre-booking sales were for people coming out of Melbourne.
“It was great to see them come up and spend the day here and the night here and support our race club, but also support the town and the community with hospitality.”
With the Benalla Cup having been nominated three times in the past four years for Country Racing Victoria’s ‘Event of the Year’ award, it comes as no surprise that the day is a favourite among racegoers, with plenty of positive feedback landing in the lap of Symes after another successful event on Friday.
“Just the atmosphere, everyone’s telling me how good the atmosphere was here,” he said.
“We put on a lot of added entertainment to complement the racing, obviously the racing is the feature and the Benalla Cup was won by the Hayes boys that have a base just down the road in Euroa, so that was great to see, but there’s a great buzz and atmosphere here.
“We had live music on the back lawn, had a couple of jumping castles, had face painting for the kids, and these are all free activities, and then out the front on the track we had all the corporate and hospitality marquees, which were full, so it was a great day.”
While spring is synonymous with racing, Friday’s cup will be the last of the action at Benalla Racing Club for some time.
Works have started this week to renovate the track surface, a long-term project that will see a hiatus on racing at the venue for an extended period, while exciting new additions to the existing infrastructure are also in the works.
“As of (Monday), we’ve started our rebuild of our track, so we won’t be racing for 12 months,” Symes said.
“We’re basically reconstructing our whole track, we’re widening the track by three metres and putting in all-new drainage.
“Currently, we have no drainage, so (we are installing) all new drainage, upgrading the sprinkler system and putting down a new growing medium and a turf profile, which will be a 12-month project, which we’re really excited about.
“They started those works (on Monday), started ripping down the outside rail and it’s only 10:30 on Monday after the cup, there’s no stopping here and they’ll be straight into that.
“We are also about to go out to tender and put a new roof over our existing deck, which will be a great asset to the Benalla Racing Club.”
