{"id":303753,"date":"2021-08-09T09:59:03","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T23:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=303753"},"modified":"2021-08-09T17:59:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T07:59:49","slug":"winter-races-draw-stylish-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2021\/08\/09\/winter-races-draw-stylish-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Races Draw Stylish Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fashionable milliner Verelle O\u2019Shanesy, from Kingaroy, met up with Chahpingah\u2019s Amy Fairbairn and Burrandowan\u2019s Jessica Black at the track \u2026 all three dressed to the day\u2019s fashion theme<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

August 9, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brisbane’s snap lockdown had an unexpected effect at Wondai’s Winter race meeting on Saturday, July 31.<\/p>\n

The 4:00pm deadline for the introduction of the lockdown prompted Racing Queensland to issue a last-minute directive to all the State’s race clubs to move their race start times forward by 30 minutes to ensure all the day’s races ended before the lockdown began.<\/p>\n

However, the edict didn’t distinguish between metropolitan tracks in the directly affected 11 local government areas and unaffected country tracks outside it.<\/p>\n

The result was racegoers who turned up to Wondai’s showground to watch Race 1 at the originally advertised time found themselves watching Race 2 instead.<\/p>\n

This last-minute rescheduling was the latest twist for the meeting, which had originally been scheduled for July 3.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That meeting had to be postponed at short notice when an unexpected burst of wet weather made the early July get-together untenable.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday, the weather was back to its sunny self, the track was dry and many patrons who dressed to the “Black and White” fashion theme provided a pleasant contrast on the concourse.<\/p>\n

Race club officials also consoled themselves with the thought that attendances at this year’s meeting were well up on last year.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the race club had been forced to run a patron-free winter meeting to conform with pandemic directions in force at that time.<\/p>\n

As usual, the majority of this year’s winter meeting was sponsored by several branches of the Duff family.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Family patriarch Lewis Duff helped establish the Wondai Jockey Club – the ancestor of today’s South Burnett Race Club – close to a century ago, and many of the Duff family have maintained their connection with the Wondai racetrack ever since.<\/p>\n

As usual, Cr Kathy Duff oversaw the Fashions Of The Field competition, selecting men and women, and boys and girls, to compete in the popular event.<\/p>\n

But because of the Racing Queensland directive judging was postponed until the last race of the day had been run.<\/p>\n

However, most fashionable patrons stayed on the course and the winners walked away with prizes for their efforts.<\/p>\n