Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
Jockey Ash Butler can consider himself the luckiest rider at Cannon Park on Cairns Cup day. Butler rode the winner Colleano, which swept past them down the outside at the 100m mark and looked set to run away for a commanding victory. Until believing that his mount was home to the world, Butler sat up […]
August 28, 2026 The Northern Queensland Winter Racing Carnival will go to another level in 2027, with a boost in prizemoney to see almost $3.5 million go up for grabs over two thrilling months of racing. All four major Cups races held across Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns will now be run for $200,000 each, an […]
There is a huge crowd at Cannon Park up here in Cairns today for the Amateurs today, and its great to see given the travails that the meeting has encountered in recent years. Sadly as so often happens on rain affected surfaces at the track, we have once again this year seen in the first […]
William Pike has withdrawn as the feature guest jockey for the Cairns Cup weekend, and a tip goes with it. Pike has advised the club that the reason for his pulling out is that he has secured the mount on a horse that he views as a major Spring Carnival, and that is racing on […]
Stephen Massingham and Georgie Holt are the two leading trainers in Far North QLD. That is where the similarity ends. About 1 in every 4 of Holt’s runners gets pre-race swabbed. Only 1 in 20 of Stephen Massingham’s does. Why is that? It doesn’t make sense. The trainers who win the most races should have […]
Racing Queensland are geniuses aren’t they? A category 5 Cyclone has been predicted all week to hit Far North QLD today, accompanied by torrential rainfall of up to 200mm or more. There was never going to be any hope of racing at Cannon Park in Cairns tomorrow, yet it took RQ until this morning to […]
The BOM are predicting catastrophe for Port Douglas. But none of the locals believe them. In the space of a couple of days Cyclone Narelle has gone from a tropical low to a category 1 cyclone to a category 3 to a category 5 that is going to huff and puff and blow all our […]
The view out the window at 5.00pm this afternoon. OMG there is a cloud going over a mountain! Bunker down! But does anyone see a cyclone coming? There is more chance of spotting the Loch Ness Monster. So on Tuesday morning the BOM told Far North QLD residents living in Paradise, Port Douglas like Maggie […]
Last week’s decision by the Tablelands Regional Council to get rid of 44 council owned buildings and facilities in a cost-saving push seems surely likely to imperil the future of racing in Atherton. The council intends to divest or demolish the Atherton Turf Club storage and equipment sheds at Tolga racecourse and, crucially, the on-course […]
Oh dear. Lacey’s lucky day has turned to disaster. Yesterday the Stewards Report for race 4 at Cairns made no mention about Lacey Morrison’s excessive whip use. Now, presumably after reading the unofficial Stewards Report – our story – and having seen the incontrovertible proof of jockey Morrison’s whip rule breach, the Stewards Report has […]
