Sykes welcomes return of Benalla races

Nationals MP Bill Sykes has welcomed the return of a race meeting to Benalla by Racing Victoria.

Racing Victoria announced this week that Benalla Racing Club will get one of the five race meetings returned to country Victoria after it had earlier removed 28 meetings from country Victoria.

Dr Sykes said, “This is good news for Benalla and I am sure that the local community and the horse racing fraternity will fully support the new meeting on 20 December 2008.

“That said, other race clubs in the North East area such as Mansfield, Towong, Tatura and Wodonga are still losers.

“It is critical that Racing Victoria understands the full impact on the community of its removal of race meetings and downgrading the status of race meetings.”

“Racing Victoria must not remove further meetings from country Victoria and those race clubs and communities which have lost meetings or had meetings downgraded must be fully compensated.

Dr Sykes concluded, “I was pleased to be able to support Benalla Race Club’s application for the return of a race meeting and I will continue to support all race clubs in my Electorate as race meetings are an integral part of our local communities.”