News
Phantom horses will run at this years Christmas at the Races due to safety concerns of the race track, officials made the decision after inspecting the track Friday morning.
Updated Monday 30th November 2015
From the Ascot Park Racecourse facebook page
Hey all,
We want to keep everyone updated on our progress with Christmas at the Races. So far we have had a pretty positive response to the news and still have over 4,000 people commited to attend the races at Ascot. Outstanding!
After emergency meetings with our event team, the Police, SDC, District Health and ICC we can now confirm we will open up Winton Racecourse to General public. There will be licensed bar facilities, the Gypsy Kitchen offering food and tote opened up. This will not be R18 like Invercargill. There wont be additional entertainment sent out to Winton.
It took a lot of hard work from our events team to put this in place within such a short timeframe.
Plans for Invercargill are still coming along well with 6 bands confirmed to play throughout course.
We will continue to update you with information about both courses…please stay tuned!
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Club President Sean Bellew released a statement.
You may have heard there have been some issues with the track at Ascot Park and unfortunately due to the weather, the repair work has been much slower than expected.
With this in mind, Christmas at the Races this year will be NZ’s first ‘Phantom’ Race meeting, meaning the actual horses won’t be on course.
All the Races will be run from Winton instead.
The Southland Racing Club know they still have a responsibility to put on a great party and that’s exactly what they’ll do at Ascot Park.
There will be loads of extra big screens to view the races on, brilliant entertainment all day, fashion in the field and despite the lack the horses, it will still be a really fun day out.
The Southland Racing Club are truly disappointed that they can’t bring live racing action to you as there have been countless hours put in by their staff and their vendors but on this occasion, they have to work with the cards that they’ve been dealt.
Races intend for Christmas at the Races at Ascot Park will now be held at Winton and televised on the big screen at Ascot Park.
With the change – no horses racing – refunds will be available to people and groups who have prepaid to be on course.
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