Weetwood Handicap date expected to move

For the first time in its long history, there could be two Weetwood Handicaps run in the same year with Toowoomba allocated a September Saturday stand-alone.

The Weetwood, inaugurated 120 years ago, has traditionally been run in late March or early April to fit in with the Toowoomba show.

The show was held in late March this year and the Weetwood was run last week and won by the Chris Waller-trained Sexy Eyes.

However, there has been speculation about a date shift after Toowoomba was allocated a stand-alone metropolitan meeting on September 21 but no meeting in April in the new race dates released last week.

Toowoomba has a major tourist attraction in the Carnival of Flowers which runs from September 20 to 29.

One suggestion is the race could be promoted through the tourist body backing the carnival.

Racing Queensland has made no comment on the possible move but is expected to do so in the next fortnight.

The other major change is that Eagle Farm will again host the Queensland Oaks meeting next year giving it three Group One Saturdays in a row.

This year Doomben has the Oaks meeting again to give Eagle Farm a break between Group One days.

The dates also provide for an experiment with twilight Thursday meetings at Doomben in summer.