Roxburgh celebrates 75 years

Bruce Stewart Contributor

On Thursday the Roxburgh Trotting Club will celebrate 75 years of harness racing.

Formed in 1932 the Club held its first race meeting in 1933. The early meetings were non-totalisator and it wasn’t until 1949 (75 years ago) that the club received its first full tote license.

The first Roxburgh Cup was actually run at Gore on the grass in 1950 and was won by Black Puzzle (Grattan Loyal). She was trained by Davey McIntyre and driven by Graeme McIntyre, the grandfather and father of Brent McIntyre, owner of Macca Lodge.

By the mid 1950s the Roxburgh Club was racing on it’s home course. The 1956 winner of the Roxburgh Handicap (Cup) Redcliffe Hall (Dillon Hall) also won the Central Otago Handicap later that day. Trained by Davey Todd, Redcliffe Hall was the first of four Cup winners for the Mataura based trainer. His other winners were Michael Hall (1957), Blue Prince (1960) and the great Cardigan Bay (1961). The same day that Cardigan Bay won the Cup as a four year old, Robin Dundee won another of the Club’s feature races, the Central Otago Stakes.

Until 2004 the Club’s race day was Easter Monday but it now races in early January as part of the Central Otago circuit.

The last Easter Monday meeting was 2004. 113 horses started, the on-course turn over was $68,396 and off-course $512,543. The Cup was won by Brydone (Fake Left) owned by Ben Calder, Tony Whaanga and Earl Shannon and trained by Ray Faithful.

Other than Fait Accompli, the only other horse to win two Roxburgh Cups was Enchantee, (Bettor’s Delight) in 2020 and 2021.

The race was run over 3200 for most of its history and the race record of 4-05.1 is held by the George Shand trained Eastwood Jaunty (Holmes Hanover) which won in 2001.

Queen Bee Bardon winning the 2019 Roxburgh Cup

From 2004 the distance was changed to 2700 metres and the current record holder is last year’s winner Better’s Tart (Bettor’s Delight) with a time of 3-19.5.

Thursday’s $25,000 Peters Generics Roxburgh Cup has drawn a capacity field of fourteen and will be run at 5:28pm.