The lucrative Southern District Country Championships qualifier will return to Wagga with a bang next year.
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The Murrumbidgee Turf Club has been successful in winning back the $150,000 regional final from Albury for the first time since 2018.
MTC chief executive Steve Keene was thrilled to announce that the showcase meeting will be held at Wagga on Saturday February 20.
"We are really excited," Keene said.
"Albury has done a really good job of hosting it the last two years. We're really looking forward to showcasing what is one of the premier race meetings in the SDRA and really showing off what amazing facilities we have here.
"We're looking forward to the day."
Racing NSW, under chief executive Peter V'Landys, makes the decision on which club hosts the regional championships qualifier.
"We applied to Racing NSW. It was a hard-fought process but we're glad we won and it's a great reward for the club which, during COVID, we've taken a bit of load off the SDRA by holding transferred meetings and picnic meetings. So it's probably just reward for the club being a good citizen of the SDRA," Keene said.
Next year will be the seventh running of the Country Championships which offers rich prizemoney for locally-trained horses.
The MTC hosted the race day in 2015, 2016 and 2018 with Albury holding it the other three years.
Wagga trainer Chris Heywood welcomed the news of the Country Championships return.
"I'm really pleased to hear that, I can tell you," Heywood said. "I'm more than happy to have it back at home."
Heywood has had two thirds and a second in the Country Championship qualifiers and will be hoping for a breakthrough victory. It could be the target for his promising Blitzar, which races at Rosehill this weekend.
Keene, meantime, said the MTC is intent on growing the race day and could potentially add significant races to the program.
"The prizemoney (for the Country Championships) will remain the same and we're going to have a look over the next few weeks about some potential prizemoney increases as well (for other races)," Keene said.
"We're going to make it an amazing day's racing for the SDRA and Racing NSW and potentially run some of our other marquee races on the day."
The first two horses home in each regional qualifier earn a spot in the $500,000 Country Championships Final at Royal Randwick, which next year will be held on April 3.
The MTC's meeting for Friday February 26 is set to be swapped to Albury, which originally had a meeting set down for Saturday February 20.
