Cup's Return On Track To Revive Racing Heyday

Newcastle Herald

Friday February 24, 2006

GR

A SOURCE of Upper Hunter pride will be rejuvenated today with the Aberdeen Cup horse race.

It was last staged at Scone's Satur racecourse in 1996 but last held in 1969 at Aberdeen's old race track, which was flooded and abandoned in 1971.

The race will be held today at Muswellbrook's Skellatar Park racecourse and promises to bring together longstanding members of the region's racing community, including Tom Ollerton, who trained Secret Tom, the last horse to win the last race at the Aberdeen track in 1971.

"Aberdeen was a popular track," Mr Ollerton said.

"It was soft on horses hooves because the turn was loamy, river bank soil."

The old track was famous for a dip into which horses disappeared from view.

"That's where they said the horses used to switch jockeys," Mr Ollerton said.

The career of Upper Hunter jockey Greg Cribb, who died in a 2004 road accident, will be commemorated at the meeting with the presentation of a perpetual trophy in his honour.

Many Hunter trainers will be represented at the cup, including Mack Griffith, whose apprentice Karlie Heaslip is scheduled to ride Positive Impact.

The cup's revival is the idea of Aberdeen's Progress Association and Chamber of Commerce.

It will be a far cry from 1898, when the Aberdeen Jockey Club was formed and ran under "Rafferty's rules", Scone race history buff Harley Walden said yesterday.

"The cup will turn back the hands of time," he said.

© 2006 Newcastle Herald

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