The Tamworth Jockey Club's training infrastructure and stables are set to be upgraded following a $2.4 million investment.
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The club will receive the injection of funds as part of the NSW Government's 2021/22 budget which allocated $67 million toward racetrack upgrades around NSW.
The funds will be split with $800,000 going toward training infrastructure and $1.6 million going toward the upgrade of current stables and installation of roughly 40 new ones.
"We're not only increasing our capacity, but we're also making our stables safer and more modern which our horses, our trainers and our industry will appreciate using on a day-to-day basis," TJC general manager Michael Buckley said.
Buckley said Tamworth trainers had been "busting at the seams" to get new stables since he came on as general manager.
One of those trainers is Troy O'Neile.
The Tamworth trainer said the new stables would fill up "without a problem in the world" and would allow local trainers to better entice higher quality horses to the area.
"This grant's going to be a massive injection in the arm for a lot of trainers around here. Especially to some of the younger trainers coming through," O'Neile said.
He added: "The trainers that are here now, we will get access to the bigger players as in owners, the bigger studs that are looking to other places at the moment. This is going to bring us onto the level of other tracks and give us the chance to get those other guys in, the bigger players in, which is what we're all here for."
The other benefit from the investment was employment opportunities.
Tamworth MP and NSW Racing Minister Kevin Anderson said the announcement was "fantastic for the community".
"The flow on effects of an announcement like this are huge," he said.
"Racing employs 881 people in the Northern Inland region and this announcement will provide further job security for those people and have potential to add more."
The announcement comes on the back of the ongoing reconstruction of the sand training track and upgrades to the drainage on the course proper.
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Ben Jaffrey
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
