This Saturday night our attention will turn to Mildura where a cracking nine-race harness racing card has been assembled highlighted by the running of the Invitation Drivers Championship.
Some of the top drivers in Victoria, South Australia and New Zealand will be doing battle across the four heats. The drivers are as follows:
Chris Alford (VIC), Michael Bellman (VIC), Gavin Lang (VIC), Emma Hamblin (VIC), Lisa Miles (VIC), Kerryn Manning (VIC), Anthony Butt (VIC), Kimberly Butt (NZ), Mark Billinger (SA) and Leah Harvey (SA).
Secretary of the Mildura Harness Racing Club Mark Kemp is ecstatic with the quality of drivers for the Invitational Championship.
“This is one of our big nights of the year. We always look forward to this, having the 10 invited drivers and would you believe they have driven 20239 winners for 158 million in prizemoney, so it’s a pretty impressive group," he said.
Kemp is adamant that the club has the right mix of young drivers and the more experienced drivers.
“We have some very talented juniors in Emma Hamblin and Kimberly Butt from NZ and obviously some very talented drivers like Gavin, Chris and Anthony so you have th best of the best at that end and we feel we have some extremely promising juniors as well.”
The Championship will be conducted over four heats. In two heats however the field size hasn’t allowed all drivers a drive so in that case that driver will be allocated six points.
There will be plenty of extra entertainment on track as well throughout with a Punters Club, with a guaranteed minimum $1000 pool in operation, plus a llimited number of caps available with the names of the drivers inscribed.
Gates open at 4pm and the first 50 kids on course will receive a bag full of goodies.
It is also free entry for women as the club encourages the girls to have a night out.
There is still dining available upstairs, $35 for a three-course meal with all ladies receiving a free glass of champagne and a $5 betting voucher. To book a table you can contact Mark Kemp on 03 5023 2454.
by Matthew Jackson