The hugely popular Aggies race day was set to be held at MTC on Saturday week, September 18, a meeting that has attracted a crowd of around 7000 people in the past.

But with the restrictions around Saturday week's race meeting still up in the air due to the NSW statewide lockdown, the MTC has pushed back the Aggies festivities to October 16.

The October 16 meeting was originally pencilled in for the Kurrajong race day. The fundraiser had been moved to the spring this year but organisers made the difficult decision to cancel for the second consecutive year last week.

The restrictions around COVID-19 was going to make the event too hard to run, particularly around Racing NSW's rules where all racegoers must be masked.

The annual Aggies race day was also run without crowds last year so the MTC and organisers from Charles Sturt University were both keen to push the fundraiser back a month when the opportunity arose.

MTC president Geoff Harrison explained that crowds at the original September 18 meeting are going to be limited at best, so the move was a logical decision to give the event every chance of going ahead.

"At the end of the day, Aggies were happy to go for an extra couple of weeks and see what comes of it," Harrison said.

"That's all we can do. We might not be able to have crowds there until the end of October, or the end of Christmas time, who knows."

MTC had been geared up for a bumper spring carnival.

The Kurrajong meeting, undoubtedly the most popular family race day of the year, had been moved to spring time and was set to follow Aggies and the annual Wagga picnic meeting on the October long weekend.

Harrison said it was a disappointing blow for the club and racegoers alike, but maintained it had to be kept in perspective.

"It was going to be terrific. Between Aggies, Kurrajong, Ted Ryder Cup, everything. it was all shaping up good," he said.

"It was a shame to lose Kurrajong again this year but it was just going to be too much hard work, and too much of a gamble with lockdowns.

"But like I've been saying, if we can put racing on, have racing at the tracks and people can go to a venue somewhere else and watch it on the screen, that's better than not having racing at all.

"If we don't have crowds back until Christmas time, I'm not too concerned as long as we can keep racing going. That's the number one priority, to keep the industry safe."

Harrison said as soon as Racing NSW allowed crowds back at the races, MTC will do so. He hopes that can be the case for Saturday week's race meeting, or at the very least, the Wagga picnics on October 2.

The Wagga picnic committee will make a decision a fortnight before its meeting on what they will do with crowds, pending the announcement this week around lockdowns.

Harrison also reiterated that looking after MTC members would be the first priority once crowds are given the green light to return.

Meantime, MTC has re-advertised the chief executive position.

Harrison praised the efforts of staff for stepping up in the absence of a chief executive, since Steve Keene departed for Scone in the middle of last month.

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