Other sports andhorses for courses

By Stuart Teather
THE horse racing took a back seat to some more obscure sports at the Pakenham Racing Club’s Kids and Farmers Raceday on Saturday.
Gumboot throwing, bungee trampolining and go-karts were the order of the day for the hundreds of kids who dragged their parents to the event.
Not to mention the Cardinia Gift, a foot race down the home straight, won by an ecstatic Pakenham Little Athletics Club member, Jenelle Joiner.
For the older kids, there was a ballroom dancing display, the local emergency services put on a show and ‘Wacca’ the gumtree drummer was on hand to belt out some tunes.
All up it was a very successful day, according to racing manager Michael Hodge.
“It was just a really great community day, the club was ecstatic with it,” he said.
“The array of free activities for the kids was just fantastic.
“The crowd was up 44 per cent on the past two years, the crowd was 3007, and the last couple of years we’ve had about 2000.”
Mr Hodge attributed the increase to the free family passes offered in the Cardinia Connect magazine leading up to the race day.
“We got nearly 500 of those back through the gates,” he said.
“It was a great day, the track performed well as it always does, really it was a great prelude to Cup Day on Sunday 1 March.”