Public holiday reverts back to Melbourne Cup

Published on 20 February 2018

Horsham Rural City Council has made a decision to revert the Horsham Cup public holiday back to the Melbourne Cup.  The decision was made at last night’s Council meeting.

The Horsham and District Racing Club approached Council last year requesting a public holiday for the Horsham Cup.  After consideration of a range of information available at the time, Council resolved to grant a public holiday for the Horsham Cup in lieu of the Melbourne Cup, for three years from 2017 to 2019, with a review after the second year.

Mayor Cr Pam Clarke said that the decision to reallocate the Melbourne Cup public holiday to the Horsham Cup last year had a significant adverse impact on the business community and it was necessary to review their decision.

”The Horsham Cup is held on the Friday prior to the Melbourne Cup each year.  Fridays are by far Horsham’s busiest retail trading day and last year’s public holiday had a significant negative impact on our business community.  There was also confusion for customers as some businesses did not observe the public holiday, choosing to remain open on the Friday and close for the Melbourne Cup,” she said. 

Cr Clarke said that whilst there was a small increase in attendance numbers at the Horsham Cup, sadly there was a reduction in local sponsorship and take-up of corporate marquees from previous years. 

“The Horsham Cup is an important local event and we will continue to work closely with the Horsham and District Racing Club to ensure its ongoing success.  A successful race day provides substantial economic benefits for our city and we need to work together as a community to support the event.

The Destination Horsham tourism campaign which aimed at attracting race goers to other events taking place during the extended cup weekend was very successful last year.  We intend to build on that success and make it an even better weekend in Horsham this year,” she said.