Hello Perth Placegetter, nice to see you're still smiling after the past few days of very hot weather over your way. :wink:

Anyhow, a bit of interesting Perth stuff, courtesy The West Australian website:


WA'S racing showcase, the Ascot summer carnival, may get a new-look international-style race to provide a grand slam into its two premier sprints.

The WA Turf Club is considering introducing a 2100m feature to follow the $500,000 Railway Stakes (1600m) and $300,000 Fruit 'N' Veg Stakes (1800m).

The race would provide WA with a Cox Plate-distance feature, a significant development given that 2000m racing is now internationally recognised as the premium trip for champagne horse racing.

The new feature may be slotted in to fill a 24-day gap between the Fruit 'N' Veg Stakes and the $350,000 Perth Cup (3200m).

The proposal comes on the back of a record-breaking summer carnival at which betting and attendance figures underlined a major resurgence for the racing industry.

"Racing over 2000m to 2100m is now the international benchmark for class events," WATC chairman Ted Van Heemst said. "Features are coming back from the former traditional 2400m.

"You have to be constantly reviewing things. The focus is on trying to improve our industry to give us the best result. It is an issue we will address."

The Ascot track cannot support a 2000m event because the start area would fall too close to the home turn. But it would require only minor modifications to install a 2100m start, with a maximum field of 14.

There have been calls from the industry for a 2100m start because the present 400m gap, between 1800m and 2200m starts, is not ideal. The preferred option would be to have a start in the middle.

Van Heemst said he understood criticism that the Ascot carnival was too long because it stretched from late November until January 1.

He also said the committee accepted that interstate competition was unlikely because of Perth's isolation and the superior stakes offered in Melbourne and Sydney.

"We've got to recognise there is the Nullarbor and prize money differential," he said. "What we must do is maximise what we can do here. If we get external competition that is great."

The club hopes to lift the profile of the Channel Nine Stakes (1200m) by raising its stakes to give the carnival a principal short-course sprint.

"With the restructuring of the industry in August, we will be doing our budget a bit earlier this year," Van Heemst said.

"Race programming and a review of prize money will be closely looked at."

Growth on the revamped Ascot carnival, at which the Railway was pushed back into late November and the WATC Derby and WA Oaks shifted to the autumn in 2001, has been good.

Figures show that betting at meetings featuring the Fruit 'N' Veg, Railway and Channel Nine Stakes, as well as the Perth Cup, was up 11.6 per cent on 2000 and 30.9 per cent up on 1999. At three of the four days, on-course tote records were set.

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