Thousands expected in Birdsville for racing carnival

ABC NEWS (Australia)

It's the 'Melbourne Cup of the outback' -- thousands of people have travelled to far western Queensland for the annual Birdsville races. Although organisers aren't expecting a record crowd -- it's set to be a massive two days of racing.

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00:0013 races across the next two days with a total prize money pool of $300,000 up for grabs.

00:10Last year's cup winner, Neodium, is back to defend his title. He's come all the way with

00:15his trainers from Adelaide, a short 16,000 kilometres down the road. But he's back this

00:23year in attempt, which would be quite a rare occurrence, actually, because a back-to-back

00:28cup title has only happened four times in the race's 142-year history. But, of course,

00:36thousands of people come from across the country. So one of the draw cards of coming to this

00:41two-day horse race meet is the location, and that is the remote town of Birdsville on the

00:48edge of the Simpson Desert. And while you're here, there's a lot to fit in. I'm standing

00:52in front of the iconic Birdsville pub, which hasn't quite opened its doors yet, but will

00:56have beers flowing shortly. There's the local bakery in town, which sells the famous camel

01:02pies, which I'm yet to try, but it's on my list to do while I'm here. And then, of course,

01:08people will head to the races at the iconic dirt track of Birdsville. There's been about

01:143,500 tickets sold, which is quite significantly down from the race's peak a couple of years

01:21ago. But organisers say outback events like this aren't immune to people feeling the pinch

01:27of cost-of-living pressures. And also those within the horse racing industry say it's

01:32logistically challenging and expensive to get horses out here, whilst also keeping staff

01:38at home to look after different horses that they're not bringing. But still, getting 3,500

01:43people out to Birdsville, with the cost of petrol and everything going on at the moment,

01:47is quite a feat, and I'm sure the races will keep running for years to come, and have already

01:52been running for 142 years.

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