THE Golden West Race Club’s Gold Bathurst Cup meeting is still four days away but on the back of yesterday’s record nominations and the makings of the strongest field for the feature event in a decade, organisers are already labelling it a success.

GWRC’S Michael Plummer was thrilled yesterday to see that the club had received 225 nominations for its eight-race program, to be staged at Tyers Park, with the Gold Nugget for two-year-olds the only race they hope to get more horses for before acceptances are declared at 9am tomorrow morning.

“That is definitely a record for us, 225, for the Colour City Cup meeting [in Orange] they got 197, I can’t remember when we have gotten more nominations,” Plummer said.

“It is about the same number of nominations as Scone’s big cup meeting on Friday and the only race we will be extending [nominations] for is the two-year-old race, just with what happened with EI [Equine Influenza] there are not a lot of them around.”

However, it is not just the quantity of horses but also the quality of those who have nominated for Sunday’s race meeting that have GWRC officials smiling. The feature race, the 2008 Sky Channel Gold Bathurst Cup (2000 metres), is a perfect example.

Among the 15 nominations are 2008 Queanbeyan Cup winner Predominance, this year’s Dubbo Zoo City Cup victor Nampara Bullet, current Gooree Cup and Colour City Cup holder Are You Joeken from Max Crockett’s Mudgee stables plus dual Coonamble Cup victor and first past the post in the 2006 Narromine Cup Juerga.

“I think Are You Joeken and Nampara Bullet are the best horses going around the Central West at the moment ... it really is a quality field that has nominated and between the 15 of them they have won 95 races,” Plummer said.

“The Town Plate is also full of quality, it’s the best lot of sprinters that you could assemble from across the Central West.

“I dare say it is the strongest cup field we have had in 10 years and the same with the Town Plate.”

The Town Plate is a 1200m contest which has attracted 18 nominees including last start Bathurst victor Charlie Bub from Gary Portelli’s Warwick Farm team.

Former Bathurst trainer Leanne Aspros, who is now based at Warwick Farm, has also nominated several members of her stables for the meeting which has attracted not only Western Districts trainers but those from Sydney and Canberra.

“I am more than happy with the nominations and it should be a really good day out,” Plummer said.

The first race on Sunday is expected to go at 12.15pm at Tyers Park.