CTC President Jeff Bristow presenting Graeme “Dick” McAlister with life membership.
The Coota Turf Club’s October Long Weekend Race Meet was a huge success, with President Jeff Bristow happy with how the day played out.
“It was a good day out. We’ve done pretty well out of it. The weather was fantastic.
“Some of the highlights of the day were the Cootamundra Cup winner, Epaullo Creed, trained by Nick Olive and ridden by John Kissick. It won well.
“We had the dead heat in the race before (Riverina Ford Benchmark 66 Handicap) with Sutton Vella and Dolly.
” ‘Dick’ Graeme McAlister being made a Life Member was probably the highlight of the day for me. “He’s the sort of fella that does a lot but doesn’t say a lot. He’s always there. He cleans the saddlecloths, cleans the toilets out, and cleans the jockeys’ rooms. If I’ve forgotten something, he will say, “Have you done this Jeff?” and I will say “Thanks, Dick, I had forgotten all about that”.“Dick has been on the committee for about 30 or 40 years, I reckon.
“He said to me “Jeff, there’s other people more deserving of this than me,” and I said, “Dick, there is not, and that’s why we are giving it to you, mate.
“He was very embarrassed and I think he had half an inkling of what was going on when we got him to come over.
“He’s a bloody good fellow and he’s got a wealth of racing knowledge, an absolute wealth of it. “We are having our 150th next year and he will be right up there helping out.
“For the 150th celebration, we will probably do something the night before and try to get a couple of guest speakers. It won’t be anything big like a ball or a dance or anything like that; it will be just trying to get a few racing identities to attend and have an enjoyable night.
Jodie is pictured with the judges for the day Chris Scott and Jeremy Taylor.
“We’ve got 12 months to plan that, so we will get stuck into that shortly.
“I’ve got good positive feedback. Everyone around the town was happy with it. It was a big crowd, I’m not sure what the crowd numbers were, but it was fairly sizeable. It’s always interesting when you’ve got a stalwart committee like the RSL take the food on and they run out at 2.30-3pm, so it shows that they’ve tried to cater and people have really got stuck into the tucker.
“That’s the only negative feedback we had off someone on a Facebook post.
“A really good effort was put in by Jacqui Vincent and the RSL Sub-Branch. We always like to get local people. “We had a few runs to IGA because we had run out of alcohol as well. We were just a bit overwhelmed by the crowd; the grandstand was packed.
“Now that the race meeting is over, we are getting work done on the grandstand. It will start in about two weeks’ time. We will waterproof it all and probably put a few more seats back up in the side areas that we had petitioned off. We will have it looking pretty good for next year.
“On the racing side of things, the track had a bit of growth in it; it went to a Good 3.
“It was nice and firm for those who like it firm and had a bit of cover on top, and the jockey who did well was the Frenchman, Pierre. He had four winners and to ride the last winner at $17 just showed his capabilities.
“The winning trainer was Mick Travers from Wagga, and we did that on a points basis and Mick just beat Scott Spackman.
“It was a lot of work put in and we got a lot of help from the ladies at the Cootamundra Picnic Association; they were fantastic. They ran the Fashions on the Field.
“One of the ladies from the Picnic Association, she’s got her RSA, and she was behind the bar all day. It was a very good team effort.
“The track was good, but it probably would have been a Good 4 had we not had all that wind last week. That dried it out. We had been watering it and had it really good, but you can’t do much about the weather.
“The stewards gave us a good report, they were happy with us. If you can make the stewards smile, I think you are doing alright.
“The next meeting is the Picnics on Anzac Day.
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