Tyler Schiller salutes aboard Coal Crusher after winning last year’s The Hunter. Picture by Peter Lorimer
The Newcastle Herald will again be naming-rights sponsor for the region’s premier race, The Hunter, when it is held on November 16. The $1 million The Hunter was first run under the Newcastle Herald banner last year when won by Joe Pride-trained Coal Crusher with a front-running ride from Tyler Schiller. Approaching the sixth edition of the 1300m race, Racing NSW and the Newcastle Herald have agreed in principle to terms on a renewed deal.
Newcastle Jockey Club chief Duane Dowell said he had already started engaging with the Newcastle Herald about the 2024 event. “It was pretty late notice last year and we did amazing work to achieve the things we were able to,” Dowell said. “Now we’ve got some plans in place and are working towards The Hunter with the Herald. With more time now, we can go even bigger and better.”
The Newcastle Herald Hunter is the headline race on the standalone city-level Saturday program which also features the group 3 Spring Stakes (1600m) for three-year-olds, the $300,000 The Beauford (2300m) and the Max Lees Classic (900m) for two-year-olds.
This year naming rights for those support races will be allocated to businesses through the new Hunter Club program, which will be launched at a gala dinner at Newcastle Racecourse on Friday night. The Hunter Club consists of 20 businesses, who have paid $9900 each to join. Each will be drawn a feature race to carry their name on one of the NJC’s premier races days. “The Hunter Club has been a huge success, we got our 20 businesses and we did have a bit of a waiting list as well,” Dowell said.
“The added benefit to this is that each Hunter Club member has industry exclusivity in that we have one lawyer, one financial firm, one insurance broker etc, so there’s no competing businesses in the same space.”
The Randwick trainer claimed the Newcastle premiership with 17 winners and also the Max Lees Medal. The medal is awarded to the trainer with the best winning strike rate at the track, and Freedman finished on top with 2.65. Jean Van Overmeire led jockeys with 23 winners but Newcastle’s Aaron Bullock took the Bill Wade Medal with a strike rate of 4.1. Anna Roper and Zac Waddick were the top apprentices with nine wins. Kris Lees-trained Kalapour will be Newcastle horse of the year after his group 1 Tancred Stakes win. He also won the group 3 Archer Stakes to qualify for the Melbourne Cup and was third in the group 1 Metropolitan and Sydney Cup.
** The NJC is searching for a new racing operations supervisor after David Dyson’s decision to become trainer Nathan Doyle’s racing manager.