Racehorse TALK

Gold Coast keeps Magic Millions

 By Tony Meany

June 11, 2009 12:00am

QUEENSLAND Racing wants to rip up the Eagle Farm track rather than host the Magic Millions, which will remain at the Gold Coast.

 QR chairman Bob Bentley said he wanted to talk with new Brisbane Turf Club chairman Kevin Dixon about upgrading the track as soon as he takes charge next month.

Bentley discounted any suggestion the project could be done in stages, and the urgency follows heavy criticism of the way the track performed after heavy rain during the winter carnival.

"If you are going to do a job it might as well be done right,'' Bentley said. "I don't believe in laying half the track and racing on the other half. It should all be done in one project.''

The project would mean the closure of the Eagle Farm track for several months and new tracks take at least a year to settle after they are put down.

Eagle Farm is in the running for a Cushion Track and Bentley said the decision whether it went to the Gold Coast or Eagle Farm still had to be made. "The Toowoomba Cushion Track has been finished and it cost QR $8million more than the government funding,'' he said.

The opening meeting on the Toowoomba Cushion Track will be held on July 11 when the Weetwood and the Toowoomba Cup will be run as a Saturday metropolitan meeting.

Bentley confirmed that the Magic Millions races will stay at the Gold Coast. He said QR allocated where races would be run and his board was "keen to have the race stay on the Gold Coast''.