Sport
22 October, 2024
Remembrance Day ready to rock Redwood
Final preparations are underway for the on-track activities at the Redwood Carnival, starting with Friday’s Redwood Remembrance Race Day.
The annual Friday race has been organised to ensure that legends of harness racing in Maryborough and in the industry can be honoured throughout the afternoon.
The races will then be followed by a fun night, with a trivia night set to enthral punters and spectators in the Maryborough Harness Racing Club’s (MHRC) new facilities.
MHRC’s general manager, Jackson Barby, said it was a goal to highlight those who have made Redwood and the industry what it is today.
“It’s been a very popular initiative, the Redwood Remembrance Day. We really wanted to highlight the stories — harness racing is an industry with a lot of stories and family connections, and it’s a tight-knit community,” he said.
“Having these memorial races is very special to a lot of people, but we want to highlight those contributions of the past industry participants and what they’ve done for Redwood and our club and the industry to the wider audience, so they can understand the significance, their contributions and the origins of Redwood and how it came about over the years.”
Barby said with the new facilities coming together, he found the idea to blend the heroes of the past and the excitement of the future a good one to implement.
“We want to bring the past together along with the journey of the future,” he said.
“Transitions are always an interesting time, but I want to recognise that it was important to appreciate who has got us to this point, but there’s now the challenge to take it to the next level with the challenge of growing the club in the near future.
“It was a conversation around the committee table, but also our major sponsor, Aldebaran Park, a big promoter, was keen to push it along as well.
“The Victorian Square Trotters Association have been long-time supporters of the Redwood Carnival and here in Maryborough as the home of the trotter.
“A lot of the people who we’re honouring through the memorial races are people involved not just with the club, but the Victorian Square Trotters Association.
“These are the sort of people that helped trotting get to where it is today, to be such a respected type of racing. It’s come a long way.
“The trotters started with a few people pushing it along, and now it’s really booming. Maryborough has been a big part of that.”
Barby says the day will be a refreshing look back to the past, going as far as putting photos from yesteryear obtained from families of legends into their race book to make it a collectors item.
“It’s been a good process. We’ve touched base with a lot of the families, and we’ve asked them for some stories and photos and things like that to include in our racebook for the Friday, so that will be a bit of a history piece now,” he said.
“Reading through some of the stories, we’ve had some legends of the sport with some incredible stories with achievements about what they’ve done.
“It’s been nice to have families show the photos, come out and talk about the horses that won back in the day, when they won the Redwood, and how it was such a special weekend for their families.”
The day will be followed by the trivia night, something which Barby has been pushing to ensure there’s always something going on at the track throughout the three-day carnival.
“It’s all part of making it a whole weekend again, and making the carnival a weekend where people can come up to Maryborough and there’s something happening each day and encouraging people to stay back after the races and enjoy the new facilities up here,” he said.
“We want to have fun with the trivia night, which would be a nice way to ease into the weekend.
“We have a good team, good supporters around us, and we’ll look to keep improving and going forward. We’re hoping the weather holds out for us too.”
The heats for the Victoria Trotters Derby were run on Sunday after-noon, with unbackable favourite Keayang Zahara taking the first heat in the fourth race of the day, before Pinnie took the second heat.