Queensland racing authorities are confident there will be no late hiccups when a final dress rehearsal is staged under lights ahead of Toowoomba's historic Cushion track twilight meeting on Saturday.A final shipment of 180 lights from France arrived in Brisbane on Monday and will be erected in time for the club to stage a series of jump outs on Wednesday night to test the new lighting system.Saturday's meeting will feature the $150,000 Listed Weetwood Handicap (1300m) and $100,000 Listed Toowoom
Queensland racing authorities are confident there will be no late hiccups when a final dress rehearsal is staged under lights ahead of Toowoomba's historic Cushion track twilight meeting on Saturday.
A final shipment of 180 lights from France arrived in Brisbane on Monday and will be erected in time for the club to stage a series of jump outs on Wednesday night to test the new lighting system.
Saturday's meeting will feature the $150,000 Listed Weetwood Handicap (1300m) and $100,000 Listed Toowoomba Cup (2100m) under lights for the first time.
Queensland Racing Limited's racing manager Paul Brennan said 250 new lights had been installed at Toowoomba and the final shipment would be installed by Tuesday.
"I'll be going up to Toowoomba tomorrow to inspect the lights along with the project manager," Brennan said.
"All that is needed is to fit the lights to the attachments.
"We don't envisage any problems but if there is we have a contingency plan.
"We could get away using the lights we already have up or we could use some of the lights that we put in storage from the old lights that were in use at Toowoomba."
The meeting will be the first ever metropolitan program staged by the Toowoomba Turf Club and the first on its controversial new Cushion track.
Similar to the synthetic track at Caloundra, the surface divided the local training community when it was recently installed to replace the grass course proper.
With Toowoomba holding metropolitan status, Saturday's Doomben program has been relegated to a provincial meeting.
"It's the first time Toowoomba has ever had a metropolitan meeting," Brennan said.
"They will still race at Doomben the same day but Doomben will only be a seven race meeting with provincial status.
"We're going all out to make sure Toowoomba is a success.
"There's 15 races across two venues and Doomben will start at 11.05am and be completed by 2.35pm.
"Then Toowoomba will kick in from 2.40pm and will wind up at 7.05pm."
Former Toowoomba jockey Stathi Katsidis has given the Toowoomba Cushion track a glowing endorsement after riding in a series of barrier trials there last week.
"I've never ridden on the Cushion track before but it was great to ride on last week," Katsidis said.
"Im looking forward now to riding on it under race conditions.
"I don't think there will ever be a surface as good as grass to race on but this synthetic track seems a good one."