Harness will see an increase in race dates for the 2022-23 season. 4 additional meetings have been scheduled across the state. This has been due to King Island returning to their pre-covid season number of 7 meetings as well as ensuring that the Harness season does not have single meeting weekends consecutively as seen in the current season.
The following are positive alterations differing to the current calendar:
- A Saturday SKY 1 timeslot was able to be allocated to the Tasmanian Trotting Club on 3 September. A date in early September has been identified as appropriate for the scheduling of the Tasmanian Oaks & Derby beginning in 2023 (previously held in March).
- SKY were unable to provide a SKY 1 opportunity for Boxing Day. Due to this the meeting has been moved to Tuesday 27 December to enable the SKY 1 opportunity.
- The Carrick Park Pacing Club will again hold their Cup meeting on a Sunday (12 March). Due to a clash with the Carrick Speedway the Tasmanian Harness Yearling Sale will go back to being held on this raceday. The sales will be held prior to the meeting whereas previously it was held during the meeting.
- From the success reported this year the Tasmanian Trotting Club and Hobart Greyhound Racing Club will again hold a dual code meeting on Good Friday 7 April.
With the closure of DAPS the meetings generally scheduled at the DHRC have been transferred. Whilst it is the intention to maintain as many of these meetings in the North and North West it was not always possible due to the scheduling of not only other Harness meetings but Thoroughbreds and Greyhound meetings.
DHRC’s 13 meetings have been reallocated to the following:
- BHRC – 3 meetings
- TTC – 2 meetings
- LPC – 8 meetings
In addition to these Burnie has gained an additional meeting early October taking them to 8 for the season with Carrick scheduled to hold the Australia Day meeting which will increase them to 4 meetings for the season.
Tasracing is aware of the considerable impact the exit from DAPS will have on NW based harness participants and as such have endeavoured to retain as many of the existing DHRC race dates, to remain in the North / North West of the state and reduce the ongoing travel requirement for impacted trainers. It should be noted that the number of meetings in the North / North West have remain unchanged from the 2021/22.
Harness Race Dates 2022/23 [PDF]