As the global financial crisis took its toll on the euro in 2010, the Golden Easter Egg at Wentworth Park – by means of a massive boost in winner’s purse and the strength of the local currency – became the world’s richest race. Radley Bale, Cosmic Rumble and, only four weeks back, Don’t Knocka Him were rewarded with $250,000 in the feature but the celebrated group 1 feature is no longer king of the mountain. On Thursday, the Sandown Greyhound Racing Club announced a brace of feature race prizemoney increases, the most important being the lifting of the Melbourne Cup’s prizemoney to a remarkable $350,000 to the winner.

Only three weeks back, the Australian Cup at The Meadows was lifted to mirror the Sydney money and it was no surprise to see Sandown gazump all others. But, from $200,000 why $350,000? The club has always attracted the best dogs in the land for much less and, in truth, other feature races have suffered for the largesse. Not the least is their (now) group 2 Laurels over 515 metres. Restricted to bitches only, the Laurels has been left behind at $50,000 to the winner. Its equivalent is the Silver Chief at The Meadows where the males vie for $100,000. Sandown’s November Superdogs series (which includes the Melbourne Cup) is worth more than $1 million. In addition to a record prizemoney increase to its premier event, the club will elevate all five of its group 1 events to a minimum of $100,000 to the winner. Listed events have been added to the calendar, giving the club 16 black type races through the year. The Melbourne Cup announcement was made possible due to an additional $450,000 from Greyhound Racing Victora, and comes as part of GRV’s recent decision to increase prizemoney by 20 per cent from $30 million to $36 million for 2012/13.

Meanwhile, Dapto’s 14th annual Country Winnebago Puppy auction gets under way at the famous showgrounds track today at 9am.