{"id":139310,"date":"2025-11-17T10:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T10:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139310\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T10:15:07","slug":"waipukurau-crowds-flock-to-hawkes-bays-first-race-day-in-over-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139310\/","title":{"rendered":"Waipukurau: Crowds flock to Hawke\u2019s Bay\u2019s first race day in over a year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s easily the best race day I\u2019ve been to at Waipukurau, and that would be the biggest we have ever done.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anyone tells you any different they are lying. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the biggest race day we have ever done [in Waipukurau] by a country mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waipukurau Racecourse<\/a> has been in place for over a century.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe mascot race was a big hit.<\/p>\n

As well as racing, the event featured fun activities for children, fashion in the field, a mascot race on the track, a gathering of life members, and \u201cjust something for everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lawrence said Waipukurau had not had an event of that size in a long time<\/a> and locals turned out for it.<\/p>\n

\"Tauranga-trainedTauranga-trained horse Enright wins the feature race, the Waipukurau Cup. Photo \/ Jane Davidson<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just epic.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, a helicopter was used to dry out a portion of the track ahead of the Sunday racing, which enjoyed fine weather.<\/p>\n

Waipukurau Racecourse is hosting two more race days in the near future on Sunday February 15 and Sunday April 26.<\/p>\n

Racing is expected to return to Hastings Racecourse next spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the racing on Sunday, the nine-race card carried total prize money of $183,000.<\/p>\n

The feature race, the Waipukurau Cup, was raced for $35,000 which was won by Tauranga-trained Enright (earning $20,125).<\/p>\n

Enright jockey Erin Leighton said it was \u201chonestly one of the coolest days I\u2019ve experienced on a New Zealand racetrack\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was incredibly well run.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Kirsty Lawrence sold the place out, and they were all having a great time.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe also provided plenty of iceblocks for the jockeys, which we appreciated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an amazing day, and to win the Cup was icing on the cake and a real thrill.\u201d<\/p>\n

A video of the mascot race, which is available on the Waipukurau Jockey Club Facebook page, has been viewed more than 50,000 times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s easily the best race day I\u2019ve been to at Waipukurau, and that would be the biggest we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7793,26636,5972,31125,1888,94796,94797,1976,14568,78,111,139,69,1523,7798,3512,12971,213,2044,61,54948,102,379],"class_list":["post-139310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bays","tag-crowds","tag-day","tag-epic","tag-first","tag-flock","tag-flocking","tag-hawkes","tag-horse","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-race","tag-racing","tag-returned","tag-sports","tag-time","tag-to","tag-waipukurau","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}