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By Mark Brassel

Friday’s Muswellbrook race meeting will be a bitter-sweet occasion for the race club’s CEO, Duane Dowell, who departs after more than a decade.

Dowell was initially a Board member before taking up the chief executive role in 2015.

Duane Dowell [pictured below] and his enthusiastic team have put an enormous amount of effort into building Friday’s Queen of the Valley Matchmaker raceday.

“I’m so glad to see this day gain prominence with trainers and owners, so it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to the Board and staff after Friday’s meeting,” said Mr Dowell.

“Owners of fillies or mares that compete in the Queen of the Valley Matchmaker receive access to an exciting list of stallions in the Hunter Valley.

“Widden, Vinery and Kingstar Farm have all offered nominations to some of their standing stallions for 2021 with the first three placegetters in the race able to access the list on a ‘first past the post’ allocation.

“Muswellbrook Race Club devised this concept, and it has always proven to be very popular with the race gaining traction over the past couple of years.

“The winning connections will get the first choice, then second place the next pick and so on.”

The stallions on offer include Unite and Conquer, Bull Point or Lord of the Sky (Kingstar), Press Statement (Vinery) and Supido & Stratum Star (Widden).

The Queen of the Valley Matchmaker is a Benchmark 66 Handicap over 1280m for fillies and mares, with last year’s winner being the Rod Northam-trained Modernity.

Dowell starts his new position as General Manager of Racing & Operations at Newcastle Jockey Club on 16th August.

“I’ve seen many changes since I first walked into Muswellbrook Race Club in 2011,” Dowell reflected. “The changes haven’t just been improvements to infrastructure and safety but also a cultural change which I am very proud of.

“While it’s sad leaving a club that I’ve been involved with for 11 years, I’m also very excited to be joining a club with such an exciting future like the NJC.”

An interesting entry for the Queen of the Valley Matchmaker is seven-year-old Patrina, trained by Kylie Gavenlock at Gosford.

The mare was formerly prepared at Randwick by Peter & Paul Snowden and has raced just nine times for a Hawkesbury win and five placings. Patrina has trialled twice since her last race start in January but has also been nominated for Hawkesbury on Tuesday.

UPCOMING NSW COUNTRY RACE MEETINGS
Monday: Goulburn
Tuesday: Quirindi
Thursday: Scone
Friday: Muswellbrook, Port Macquarie
Saturday: Narrandera; Parkes (non-TAB)
Sunday: Moruya, Narromine