KING Island Racing had its 2023 season final hurrah last week, when King Island Racing Club president Audrey Hamer presented cheques to the value $24,000 to the King Island organisations which benefited from the Henry Dwyer Miners Cup Syndicate charity fundraising.
When the 2022 -2023 King Island Racing season was in jeopardy and looked like it would be cancelled due to lack of trainers and horses, Ms Hamer put a call out to the racing industry to help.
Trainer Henry Dwyer, who in the previous season sent a horse to participate and be locally trained by Jimmy Taylor, organised other main- land trainers to come on board, and as a syndicate, purchased unknown, unproven horses and transported them to King Island to be locally trained, so the season could proceed.
The horses were individually spon- sored by businesses. The syndicate, with a lot of humour, fun and social media promoted King Island racing, the horses and tour event, donated the winnings including the winning purse of the inau- gural Miners Rest Cup, when the six imported horses went head-to-head on Maritime Day.
Recipients of $4000 were The Grassy Pool, (IRT International Transport and Henry Dwyer Racing), The King Island Museum (Tile Importers and Andrew Noblett Racing), RFDS (Magic Mil- lions and McEvoy Mitchell Racing), Snodgrass Park Retirement Village (Ladbrokes and Grampian Racing). King Island SES, King Island Volun- teer Ambulance (Swettenham Stud and Alexander Racing), King Island Dres- sage and King Island Pony Club (KIA and Ciaron Maher Racing) each received $2000.
Ms Hamer said that it is hoped that the money donated to the Pony and Dressage Clubs will be used to assist in passing skills on to a new generation and will help in attracting kids into the clubs.
“Without the local trainers, stable hands, owners and many others behind the scenes, who continued to support, there would not have been a season.” Ms Hamer praised Heather Archer and thanked her for being her “race club right hand” and acknowledged John Cleeland and team for the role he played with the off-island syndicate.
“The live streaming by KI TV, races are still being watched and promoting the island and hopefully entices people to come here.
“The season was such a success, and we hope that we can do it all again next year. New Year’s Day races may or may not be on the day.
“There are two other meets, one at Longford and St Mary’s Pacing and there are not enough resources to cover all three being on the same day.
Only twice King Island Racing Club hasn’t had races on New Year’s Day – we’ll have to wait and see as we rely on TasRacing,” Ms. Hamer said.