Wagering numbers from Wednesday’s TAB FastTrack 1200 have shown encouraging growth, with strong nominations producing full fields for night two.
The mid-week sprint trial at Melton, which will run for three weeks, drew turnover of more than $1.9 million across the six races, growth of 42 per cent on the preceding eight-week Wednesday average.
Pleasingly, there was also an increase in wagering service provider actives of 18 per cent compared to the previous eight-week average.
Harness Racing Victoria CEO Matt Isaacs said it was pleasing participants, punters, wagering service providers and trots fans had supported the concept.
“It’s encouraging that night one of the TAB FastTrack 1200 produced positive results, in particular continuing the trend of an uplift in wagering for 1200-metre races,” Isaacs said.
“We will continue to monitor results across the following two weeks of the series, as we do for all racing, but this is really pleasing and reaffirms expectations there is broad support for the concept."
The concept also saw terrific results through SEN Survivor, with more than 600 entrants, while social media engagement and TrotsVision viewers were also up.
“It’s been terrific to see our wagering and media partners embrace the TAB FastTrack 1200 series and no doubt that has contributed to these pleasing results and is something we can build on,” Isaacs said.
TAB FastTrack 1200 continues next Wednesday with full fields accepting, which are again programmed as the first six races on the card, beginning at 5.27pm and running through to 8pm.
“It should be another engaging night’s racing,” Isaacs said. “It’s terrific to see participants embrace the series as we continue to work with them on innovating the product to engage a broader audience.
“We appreciate the increased media and wagering service provider support has positively impacted the turnover figures, which is what we aspire to achieve, and are confident this is a concept that has growth opportunities within our racing programming.”