THE Oakbank Racing Club will continue to look at ways to improve its famed Easter carnival, despite this year’s revamped format being deemed a success.

For the first time in almost 100 years, Oakbank’s most famous race, the Great Eastern Steeplechase, was held on Easter Saturday instead of Easter Monday.

While official crowd figures had not been finalised, it was estimated a crowd of at least 20,000 attended the Super Saturday program, while Monday’s meeting also proved popular, despite lacking a recognised feature race.

Oakbank chairman Barney Gask said initial feedback from both racegoers and industry participants suggested the club was heading in the right direction.

“Things are very positive,” Gask said.

“If Saturday is anything to go by, I think the changes have been really well received.

“Crowd-wise on Saturday we probably got what we’d hoped for, if not a bit more.

“And we’re happy with the crowd today, too.

“It’s hard to say in terms of actually numbers but it’s fair to say it’s more than we’d anticipated. It’s got a really good feel about it. People seem to be enjoying what we’ve put on.

“But we’re not a committee who’s going to sit still and let things roll on forever. If there’s a format that might work better than what we’ve got, then we’d look into that with Thoroughbred Racing SA and see if there are other viable options.”

Gask said he was confident the decision to move the Von Doussa Steeplechase to the prelude meeting a fortnight before Easter would be retained in 2019.

“We probably got the best steeplechaser in Australia (Zed Em) and he took out the Von Doussa-Great Eastern double. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if there wasn’t that two-week break, so I think (trainer) Patrick Payne was pretty happy with the new format. I think that’s something we’ll stick with,” he said.