While the crowd size at Kembla Grange on Tuesday will be bigger than last year's, it will still be considerably smaller than the 5000 the venue would typically play host to on Melbourne Cup day.
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Approved capacity for race day is 1750, up from 1200 during the first year of the pandemic, with no fashions on the field event taking place this year.
However, Illawarra Turf Club chief executive Peter De Vries said he expects everyone will dress up for a great day at the track.
"That is a lot less than we would normally have at the race meeting, but it is not too different from last year when we were also under some restrictions," he said.
"We are not doing Fashions in the Field this year because we are going to concentrate on doing that on The Gong race day when hopefully a few more restrictions will be lifted.
"We have sold the majority of our tickets for Tuesday and those left are being sold through Moshtix.
"There are still some dining packages and general admission tickets left."
Mr De Vries said Illawarra Turf Club was not made aware of all the COVID rule changes to racing bubbles until mid-October.
"What has been happening here since lockdown is Racing NSW divided the jockeys into separate bubbles," he said.
"We fell into the Greater Sydney area which meant there weren't enough jockeys for the metropolitan and provincial racecourses to run on the same day.
"Our regular Saturday meetings were moved to Goulburn to get them into a separate jockey bubble.
"That made it very difficult to try and sell tickets because previously we weren't able to because we couldn't confirm to people that we would be racing."
However, Mr De Vries is confident all 1750 tickets will be sold by cup day.
"We have eight races programmed. It will be a good race meeting."
Mr De Vries said the signs are that in 2022 it will be back to business as usual which is why the Illawarra Turf Club is starting to plan that cup day meeting 12 months ahead.
"Hopefully next year we will be back to some form of normality and we will be able to start selling tickets early.
"If you miss out on getting a ticket to Kembla Grange this Melbourne Cup Day don't forget The Gong is just around the corner."
A normal race schedule will then lead into summer following a busy November with meetings on the 2nd, 13th, 20th and 27th.
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Greg Ellis
Almost four decades in electronic, print and digital media. A writer, presenter, emcee, photographer and videographer with degrees in business management, marketing and human resources and tertiary qualifications in photography.
Almost four decades in electronic, print and digital media. A writer, presenter, emcee, photographer and videographer with degrees in business management, marketing and human resources and tertiary qualifications in photography.
