Cup a great day
Mother Nature obviously has a soft spot for the Warragul trots - weather conditions last Monday were as good as you could get in Gippsland in June.
Families milled around outside, children took advantage of free activities or kicked a ball around on the lawns, and groups of friends relaxed in the sun or inside the first-class Oaks function room at Logan Park.
The Warragul club could easily accommodate an extra trots meeting or two each year as it has done in times past.
Maybe even a combined day with the greyhounds - any positive promotion for trotting couldn't harm the industry at the moment.
The challenge for trotting here lies in the relatively limited number of participants in the local area.
This has seen a pruning back of local race dates in recent years.
The infrastructure and potential audience already exists, but without more regular racing opportunities, it makes it that bit harder to get involved, stay involved or relocate to the region.
Warragul Harness Racing Club president Steve Austen gave a passionate, well-delivered speech to the audience at the Sponsors and Supporters Lunch during the day.
The passion and emotion in his voice was evident as he thanked those who attended and those behind the scenes for their backing of his club and their major day.
Steve touched on the difficulty of now adjusting to a solitary race day, which drew a response of "where's the petition?!" from a harness devotee in the audience.
There may not have been a petition to sign but the club did hand out plenty of feedback forms to gauge patrons thoughts on the day.
Local officials were keen to emphasise that the trots will return to Warragul on Sunday April 4 next year.
A move to warmer weather and away from a long weekend can only enhance crowd numbers and event awareness.
Hopefully the club pursues the heats and final concept again for the Pacing Cup.
It naturally attracted the highest number of entries of any last Monday, so was well received by participants.
Importantly it also helped provide three capacity fields on an eight-race card.
Nowadays computer spreadsheet data and statistics often define whether a race club thrives or just survives - at least Warragul's key stats should be up on the one fixture they ran last year.
A looming state election, the recently released industry White Paper, and a state government bill that will ultimately transition Harness Racing Victoria from a statutory authority to a company limited by a guarantee, make for very interesting times indeed for the trots code in this state.
