Gun jockey Glen Boss drives Vivid Vixen to the line to win the 2011 edition of the Pakenham Telstra Store Cup. The build up to this year’s cup on Sunday 25 March is now in full swing. 61305 Picture: Donna Oates
THE $100,000 Pakenham Telstra Store Cup is fast approaching on Sunday 25 March and once again the Pakenham Racing Club has put on a host of exciting lead-up activities to help celebrate the club’s most prestigious racing event.
The build up starts this Friday 16 March with the Cup Corporate Golf Day at the Cardinia Beaconhills Golf Links and clicks into overdrive late next week with Breakfast with the Stars on Thursday 22 March and the Cup Calcutta Auction on Friday 23 March.
The club is also injecting extra prizemoney into its biggest day on the calendar with the nine race card carrying total prizemoney of a whopping $280,000. Racing club chief executive Michael Hodge said the increase in prizemoney was designed to attract a higher quality of horse to the day.
“The focus of the cup is to bring the highest quality of racing we can to the region, and by increasing prizemoney we think it will go a long way towards doing this,” Hodge said.
Hopefully this will help lure some of the bigger training names also, making it a viable option to fill up the float with a few starters on the day.”
The Pakenham Telstra Store Cup, run over 1750m, will again be of $100,000 in prizemoney plus a $2000 gold cup to the winning owner.
Mr Hodge said the day was already gaining significant interest from racing fans with the extra activities proving a success.
“Not only is the prizemoney enhanced but the club has a week of events to celebrate the community’s biggest race of the year,” he said.
“We are very proud of the history of this race and what it stands for within the racing community, and we are keen to get the rest of the local community involved as best we can.”
For more information on any of the lead-up events or cup day itself, contact the club on 5941 1207.
