Annual Country Club pig races support two local clubs

TROTTERS united for the latest prestige-laden thoroughbred pig races, held at the Tea Gardens Country Club on Easter Saturday to benefit multiple local sporting groups.

Windy, cool and cloudy weather drove tourists from the beaches to the piggies’ racetrack, an extra treat after many avoided eating meat on Good Friday night before.

The Country Club did not disappoint, with live acts, food and the all-important novelty of thoroughbred pig racing once again, this year augmented by the selection of two local kids from the crowd to help wrangle the piggies into starting positions for each of the six races, all sponsored by local businesses.

Tea Gardens’ Woody’s Nursery sponsored the third race, ‘Crack a Woody Variety Bash Cup’, the proceeds of which will aid Variety NSW, as will the Variety Bash run of the nursery’s Matt Tulk and Jason ‘Bushy’ Bush when they race once again in ‘NRL2’ through regional NSW later this year.

Despite the ongoing global fuel crisis, there were plenty of people in town for the long weekend at the start of the NSW school holidays.

Several newcomers were heard relishing the novelty of the pig racing, with many of the bacon-clad talents also racing for the first time.

This massive, twice-yearly local fundraiser, was, this April, thrown in support of the Tea Gardens Hawks Nest Surf Life Saving Club and the Tea Gardens Soccer Club.

“The Surf Club is raising money for new MobiMats along the main entrance to Bennetts Beach,” Amanda Osmond, Chief Training Officer at TGHN SLSC, informed NOTA.

“The weather and swells have torn them up and they need replacing so that people of all levels of mobility can still get down to our glorious beach.”

The SLSC had invited the Tea Gardens Soccer Club to join them as fundraising beneficiaries in the wake of the success of their collaborative Australia Day bash back in January.

“The soccer club needs new uniforms, and we would like to start a fund to help improve the home ground field at Memorial Park in Tea Gardens – it turns into a quagmire every time it rains,” Shayne Reynolds told NOTA.

“We are looking into grants this year, too, and could use some help writing and applying for them.”

The pre-race ‘auctions’ racked up hundreds of dollars each round, while the sequin-jacketed piglets, all embarking upon their maiden races, took a few rounds to realise that the milky green dish was the finish line, reinforced by roaring crowds when the first snout hit the dish.

Among them were The Porky Punter, Eat Chikin, More Bacon, Rindstone, Hampton, and Pork Bun, who won the first race in his red jacket.

The TGCC track was rated as ‘dry but soft’, with improvement expected throughout a day of desirable racing weather.

Barriers, of course, were rated to be ‘of little importance’ by the special edition Country Club ‘form guide’; punters were advised to look out for the hungriest runners with the fitness to finish strongly in the concluding stages.

By Thomas O’KEEFE