A Message from the Chairman
Dear Members & Guests,
The Toowoomba Turf Club wishes to provide you with several important updates as we move into July.
What a relief it is to finally announce that we’re back to night racing! This Friday marks our return to evening meetings after a three-month break while we worked on reliability improvements to our broadcast lighting system.
We’re confident the upgrades have improved the reliability of the lights, and we can’t wait to welcome everyone back for an exciting night of racing at Clifford Park.
To celebrate our return to night racing, it is the club’s shout in the Weetwood Room for all members and their guests between races 1 and 3 this Friday night. It’s our way of saying thanks for sticking with us through the day racing period, we know it wasn’t ideal for many of you. We are back to our usual Saturday night time slot from July 12th.
Before we look ahead, let’s recognise our recent standout performers. Well done to Michael Nolan with Exotique Miss for claiming April’s Horse of the Month, to John Dann and the team behind Adiella for their May honours, and to Troy Pascoe for Flash Aah for the June award. These monthly winners are in contention for the Clifford Park Horse of the Year, which we’ll present at our annual Racing Awards on Sunday, August 24th.
We have also been busy with some infrastructure upgrades. Recently completed is our new synthetic crossing over the course proper. This all-weather access point to our inside training tracks was made possible through a Racing Queensland grant and was installed by Equine Crossings Australia. This synthetic crossing has been successfully installed at Flemington and Ballarat, and the Toowoomba Turf Club was an obvious choice for this upgrade when you consider the number of horses trained here each month.
We’ve also recently secured another Racing Queensland grant to upgrade the irrigation system on our B grass. Our B grass hosts regular jump outs and barrier trials, and sees more horses on this surface than our main track. Our CEO, Grant Sheather, has put in the hard work lobbying for this funding, and work will start on this project soon.
On the staffing front, we’re pleased to welcome Josh Fleming as our Racing and Operations Manager. Josh brings his passion for racing coupled with his 20 years of experience in race calling to the role, and will be a valuable member of our team.
It feels good to be getting back to normal with racing under lights here at Clifford Park, and I look forward to seeing you here this Friday night!
Kind Regards,
Jason Ward
Chairman
Clifford Park Racecourse
By Clifford Park | July 2025
