Lynne Mowbray | The July Racing Carnival wrapped up on Sunday, with the running of the Maclean Cup Day, under sunny skies. Clarence River Jockey Club executive officer Michael Beattie said that he was extremely happy with how the carnival went. “As we expected, Westlawn Day was down as far as public participation was concerned, on the back of the fact that’s it’s the first time for a number of years that the meeting fell outside of the school holidays,” Mr Beattie said. “South Grafton Cup Day the crowd was up, Grafton Cup Day the crowd was up and Maclean Cup Day, the crowd was up with a slight drop on Ramornie Day. “I’m not really sure what to put the Ramornie crowd down to, but overall we certainly got more people here over the final four days of the carnival than we had in 2017 and that would make us very, very happy,” Mr Beattie said. A race fall during the final stages of race 5 on Ramornie Day, saw three jockeys’ (Ben Looker, Josh Adams and Jake Hull) admitted to hospital and one horse put down. “All three jockeys are all okay which is the main thing,” Mr Beattie said. “Unfortunately racing is inherently a dangerous occupa-tion and the good news is that none of those riders were involved with any serious injury and they will be back in the saddle very shortly,” he said. Another fall also occurred during race 5 on Maclean Cup Day, around the 200m mark. “The rider is okay, no problems; so there were no issues at all, but as I said that’s part of the game and fortunate-ly we’ve been able to manage to run the carnival with-out any serious injury,” he said. A presentation was made at the end of the Maclean Cup Day events, to the leading jockey and trainer of the car-nival. “It’s great that a Grafton based jockey is the jockey of the carnival,” said Mr Beattie. “Matthew McGuren is the leading rider over the carni-val and Matthew Dunn who is one of the leading train-ers in NSW and very prominent in the premiership in south-eastern Queensland, he’s also been the leading trainer for the carnival this year. “So, the people we would expect to be up the top of the winners list; they’re the ones who are there. “I think it was a great carnival and we were blessed with the weather, the locals came and the lower river people came for Maclean Day, I’m not really sure that you can ask for more,” he said.