The Birdsville Races have postponed from September to next April creating a historic two race meeting in 2022.
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Organisers said that given the ongoing uncertainty and new outbreaks associated with the highly transmissible COVID Delta variant, they have made the difficult decision to postpone the event to Sunday and Monday April 10-11 (the weekend before Easter).
The 2021 Birdsville Races were scheduled to run on September 3-4.
Gary Brook, vice president of the Birdsville Race Club said they were now less than a month away from the event, and more than 85pc of ticket holders were interstate and unable to currently enter Queensland, or in lockdown or discouraged from travelling to regional Queensland.
"The fact that key staff and contractors cannot make it to Birdsville now also jeopardizes our ability to stage a successful event," Mr Brook said.
"When announcing the end to the South-East Queensland lockdown on Sunday, the Queensland Premier pleaded with people not to travel to regional Queensland. We respect this cautionary request. To run the 2021 TAB Birdsville Cup in 2022 is unprecedented but if its good enough for the Olympics, it's good enough for us.
Mr Brook said the health landscape had changed significantly in the past two months.
"Our risk assessment was just too great, and we have a duty of care to our staff, the Birdsville community, ticket holders and the broader population to ensure we are responsible and cognoscente of the significant health risk facing the country," he said.
"Postponing the Birdsville Races really was the only decision we could make at this time."
The Race committee considered the remote location of the small Simpson Desert township of Birdsville, the lack of medical facilities in the region, the need for many local businesses to order non-refundable or perishable stock, and the inability of businesses in Birdsville and surrounding townships to source the staff they need to operate due to lockdowns and border closures when making the hard call to postpone the event.
Ben Fullagar, General Manager of the Birdsville Hotel said they support the decision to postpone the Birdsville Races.
"While the event is important to our business and such a fun part of our annual calendar, nothing is more important to us than the health of the small community in which we operate and the health of our patrons," Mr Fullagar said.
"We appreciate that the decision to postpone has been made with enough time to allow us to manage our stock and staffing appropriately. We'll all be back with a huge double celebration next year and can't wait to welcome patrons to a historic year of two big race meets in Birdsville."
Mr Brook said they consider moving the Birdsville Races to a date later in 2021 but the ongoing nature of COVID challenges and the extreme temperatures in the Simpson Desert region meant 2022 was the preferred option.
"We wanted to be sure we moved to a date that allowed plenty of time to bring this current outbreak under control, for vaccination levels to continue to grow and borders to open," he said.
"Unfortunately going any later this year would be far too hot for the horses and our camping ticket holders. Our unique racetrack is in the Simpson Desert, and the temps regularly hit 45-50 degrees as we head into summer. We've gone with April next year when we'll have lovely temperate weather similar to what we have in September."
The Birdsville Races, known as the Melbourne Cup of the outback, have been held since 1882 and have only been cancelled twice in the events history. Due to equine flu in 2007, and then COVID in 2020.
Demand for tickets to the 2021 event was huge, with first release tickets selling out on the first day they went on-sale. Patrons who purchased tickets for the 2021 and would like to attend the postponed event don't need to do anything. Existing tickets remain valid, and all customers will be resent tickets closer to the new event date.
If ticket holders are unable to attend the rescheduled event, refunds will be offered. All ticket holders will be contacted directly with this information soon.
Additional tickets for the revised event date will be released in October 2021 while tickets for the September 2022 Birdsville Races will go on-sale in early 2022.
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