• Cranbourne News

By Stuart Teather

2nd July 2009 02:05:31 AM

Luxbet.com general manager Stephen Brassel, left, and

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THE Cranbourne Turf Club is tangling an impressive carrot in an effort to increase the calibre of this year’s Cranbourne Cup runners.

The Club has signed on with Luxbet.com to offer the winner of the Cranbourne Cup $1 million if they can go on and win the Caulfield Cup six days later.

The Cranbourne Cup itself is a $156,000 listed race, but with the $1 million bonus on offer chief executive officer Neil Bainbridge said the club was hoping to attract some of the big names in Australian racing.

“I’m sure (the $1 million bonus) will take the race to a new level. I’ve got no doubt it will attract quality group performers that would probably otherwise be running at Flemington or Caulfield,” he said.

“I’m sure it will be targeted by many of the leading trainers throughout Victoria, if not Australia.”

While in the past 19 years, only six Cranbourne Cup runners have gone on to the Caulfield Cup, the 1998 runner Lisa’s Game almost completed the double, finishing second at Caulfield to Taufan’s Melody.

Last year Barbaricus was not far off either, finishing second in the Cranbourne Cup and third in the Caulfield.

Bainbridge said the bonus had been well received in the local training community, and he mentioned Mick Kent’s Banana Man, who was on Tuesday short-listed for the Victorian Country Horse of the Year, as a chance this year.

“We’ve spoken to a number of local trainers and everyone’s quite excited. I think people like Mick Kent — Mick Kent’s probably got the favourite to be the Country Victorian Horse of the Year in Banana Man, he won the Mornington Cup, the Bendigo Cup, the Colac Cup.

“I’m pretty sure, after discussions with Mick, depending on how his horse is going, it is something he would target in the lead-up to the feature staying races.”

“It’d be great if the million dollars went off and someone won it, but it’d be fantastic if it went to a local trainer.

“You can just imagine the interest if a Cranbourne Cup winner was a 6-1 chance in the Caulfield Cup, the media attention on that horse will be terrific.”

The Cranbourne Cup will be run on Sunday 11 October, with the Caulfield Cup the following Saturday.

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