Legendary The Lagoon trainer-driver Steve Turnbull, along with his daughter Amanda, one of the best drivers in NSW – will be at Towac Park for one, or both of Orange’s harness racing meets next month.
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The announcement that racing in Orange will switch from Highlands Paceway to Towac Park comes a fortnight after Harness Racing NSW stewards Grant Adams and Michael Zarb gave the track its final ticks of approval. The inaugural meetings on the grass track will be on February 5 and 12.
“[The move is] about having a presence here, we at Harness Racing NSW didn’t want to see the sport move away from Orange,” Harness Racing NSW chief executive officer John Dumesny explained.
Turnbull drove around the track at the initial trial runs last October and was on hand on Friday for the official announcement of Orange Harness Racing Club’s move.
“I found [Towac] really smooth in October, the horses got round it really nicely. There is a bit of a problem with the [sandy] crossings but that’ll be fixed up and it’s not at a bad stage of the track,” Turnbull said.
“If those crossings were in the middle of the straight there’d be concerns, but we can work around where they are. All the amenities and facilities are here, it’ll be different but I’m looking forward to it.”
While speculating, Turnbull said he wouldn’t be surprised if running on Towac’s grass track actually improves horses’ performance on more traditional courses.
“We buy a lot of horses we see run on the grass in New Zealand, they come over and do a good job so a few runs here might do them good. But it’s all trial and error,” Turnbull said.
He said it would’ve been awful to have lost harness racing completely in Orange and can’t wait to return.
“A lot of us won our first race, or have good memories of Orange. Having nothing is what we were looking at [in Orange] … it’ll be good for the sport,” Turnbull said.
Turnbull explained the changes to the structure of the race will be something for drivers and horses to get used to.
“Speed wise, I think it’ll going to be a lot different,” he explained.
“We had to get used to Menangle, that’s 1400 metres though and [Towac] is 1800.
“It took a while to get used to that but then the grass might ease the speed out of them a little bit, it’ll be interesting and it’s something to look forward.
“It was a bit of a concern being back-to-front, the way we’re running, but being so big it wasn’t a problem [in October], they came around the corner good as gold.
“If it was tighter they could have issues and end up on the wrong foot or something, but it was fine.
“I’ll be here with bells on [in February], so will Amanda.”
Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
