Two weeks ago I went to AP and thought there must have been a funeral occurring. There was more life and atmosphere at the local cemetery. No crowd, no in-between activity except a couple of mini-trots events. Could not wait to get out of there.

Went up again last Saturday night and what a difference. They were holding the first of their country fair meetings. It was a bit more challenging to get a parking spot, there were people everywhere and different activities held all through the night. A great way to introduce families, the new and unitiated to the sport. There was an excellent demonstration on the hows and whys of equipment, accompanied with prizes and a couple of youngsters were lucky enough to gear up and go round the track in a dual sulky. A fantastic effort by the club to breath a bit of life into a sport that was pretty well dead and buried up there. Its a long way back for them but it seems there are some up there that are willing to have a go at something to attract crowds back to the track.

There are plenty of big issues to be dealt with, not the least being the extremely sad state the grandstand is in. Saw the In The Gig show today and was interested in seeing the new (and very young) Ross Dowds plans for the future. He didn't come across as being very confident in his vision for the future, maybe he had stagefright from Chris Barsbys grilling of him (LOL), but it all seems to depend on the DA approval in about a months time as to the next saga up there. I haven't looked at the plans but I hope the new grandstand is built all the way around the finishing post and not just for the members benefit.

Ross was also pretty chuffed at the "full tote room" on Saturday night. I know he is pretty new at this caper but seeing as you are now the CEO maybe you could do something about this abomination that is the tote room. Access to the members room goes straight through a narrow passage between punters and tote windows. Hopeless. Need to spend some money in accomodating the punters on course before they go back to the clubs and pubs which are only to happy to accomodate them. Position of monitors and screens needs a massive renovation, along with tables, chairs etc. The current set-up I know is temporary, but really it is a disgrace the way it is at present.

The racing was good, Terrorway still ran good first up, bloused by old-timer Destreos in a career best 1.52.9, 9yrs old, 40/1, I can still hear his connections screaming...good stuff.

All in all a much better experience than two weeks ago...to all of those who are working towards bringing Qld harness racing back to life I wish you every success. There is a lot of hard work and commitment required.