Narrandera Racing Club hopes to attract a quality field for this year’s Cup after increasing prizemoney and changing the date of their feature meeting.

Narrandera will host their Cup meeting on Sunday July 22. It will still conduct two Saturday TAB meetings in June and August.

Narrandera Racing Club racing manager Michael Bailey is excited by the new-look Cup.

“We’re rapt. A fair bit of hard work has gone into this and it’s good for racing too,” Bailey said.

“We’re hoping to attract some better class horses.”

Last year’s Narrandera Cup (1400m) was worth $12,000 and only attracted five horses. It was won by Wangaratta visitor Ruary Mac.

The 2016 running of the Cup was worth $10,000 and only attracted six horses.

The club hopes the jump in prizemoney, as well as the new date can make a big difference.

The Narrandera Cup will be positioned between the Leeton and Griffith Cups. 

“There’s not a lot of big racing around at that time and we want to try and promote it as a winter carnival,” Bailey said.

“There will be decent prizemoney on offer and we want to get the word out to trainers that they don’t have to send their horses to the paddock during winter time.

“There will be good racing west of Wagga from May through to September.”

The club will still race on Saturday June 16 and Saturday August 18.

Bailey said a lot of work to the club’s drainage had been completed and expects the track will be in top condition for the busy winter racing period.