V'Landys Plan To Grow The Everest

With The Everest for 2025 sold out, Racing NSW CEO Peter V'Landys is using the Kentucky Derby as inspiration to grow crowds at The Everest, reported racenet.com.au. "The Kentucky Derby is a great example, because every year they increase the capacity," V'landys said. "We have got to look at doing the same thing. It's our big day and if we sell out almost two weeks before, like we have this year, we need to get more people in future years. We are looking to expand the infield and we may look at increasing the size of the Winx Stand. When we built the Winx Stand, we built it having the capacity to put another level on it. That's an option because the Australian Turf Club also lease it out for non-race day functions and it makes a lot of new revenues." This year's The Everest has gained massive interest from racing fans due to the presence of Hong Kong Horse Of The Year Ka Ying Rising (Shamexpress-Missy Moo, by Per Incanto). "When we first formulated the race, we thought we could get Winx," V'landys said. "I had discussions about Winx being in the race. Chris Waller thought about it, but in the end he didn't go with it. If the race was 1400m, we probably would have got Winx. If Winx was racing now, and early in her career, who is to say she wouldn't have run in it? And I would suggest she would have won it easily, she was such a champion." Winx (Street Cry-Vegas Showgirl, by Al Akbar) won over 1100m on debut, and won the Gr2 Furious Stakes over 1200m as a 3-year-old, but all her Gr1 wins were at 1400m and beyond. One promotional idea that never grew legs was to hold a 1200m sprint over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. "There was a proposal to run a 1200m race over the Harbour Bridge, but it was never The Everest," he said. "It was one race over 1200m, it could have been perfect for that sort of race. But there was a lot of capital needed to put an artificial surface on the bridge, so it didn't go ahead."